The Ikol Job
by JupiterHope2662
Summary: Eliot has never really given away anything about his past, or what made him become the man he had become...and this is why...X-over with X-Men: Evolution and Avengers! Should be FUN!
1. The Ikol Job

**For the sake of this story, the Avengers are not well-known, and Mutants are still unknown to the general population…And we're pretending that 'The Two Horses Job' never happened. So no Aimee, she never existed.**

**Oh, and I own the story, but not the characters…Boo!**

A young woman danced around the regulation-sized MMA ring, throwing kicks, punches, knees and elbows at lightning-fast speed. She was the only person in the new gym aside from a single employee and a group of four that stood midway between the entrance and ring. The four were a motley crew, no one would suspect they were a family-of-sorts just by looking at them, but that was exactly what they were, a family. They were just heading to grab their final family member who stood in the office, looking over things laid across an expensive desk.

The sole employee who seemed to be working waved to the group as he was leaving for the evening. "Hey, can one of you guys let the boss know that woman is looking for him?" He asked, nodding to the girl shadow-boxing in the ring. He seemed hesitant to even acknowledge her presence, and the group did not blame him.

The girl's rhythm changed suddenly, as the song crooning from her boom-box changed. She never repeated any combination that the four on-lookers could catch. Her admirers jaws fell slack as she suddenly jumped and used the middle rope to propel herself half-way across the ring into a perfect roundhouse and fell onto one knee, her left elbow coming down on her imaginary opponent's spine. The young brunette leapt up as her song again changed, and her rhythmic movements became a little more erratic.

The tall, thin, black man whistled through his teeth as the girl spun and kicked out with such force he could hear the air whistle. He'd only ever seen one fighter do that, and that was the owner of the new MMA gym they stood in.

"Somebody should go get Eliot." Said the slim dark-haired woman in low tones to the rest of the group, her English accent stressing her aversion to being the one to do so.

"Ah," The older man with slightly wild dark hair stammered, "I'll go get him." The song that played seemed to infuriate the woman, and he had no desire to stay and become the one she turned her rage on.

"She's _good_." Whispered the wispy blonde woman, conspiratorially to the other two.

As the next song came on, the sultry beats seemed to seep into the young woman as she turned her back to the door and allowed her hips to slink to the belly-dancing beats amidst the martial arts moves she was performing.

Eliot jumped up onto the elevated ring, and slid between the ropes, speaking over the music. "Hey, I hear you needed to speak to me?" Eliot's jaw sagged as he recognized the woman's style, matching her fighting rhythm to that of whatever song was on the radio.

The blow was unseen until the woman's elbow collided with Eliot's jaw. Eliot stared in amazement and missed the knee that landed with damnable accuracy in his hip-flexor. He jumped back to avoid the next flying limb with a huff.

"Katya." He seemed to breathe the name, though it was loudly enough that his entire team heard him, along with the strange accent and the hurt that entered his voice.

"Damn you, Piotr!" Katya shouted as she struck out again, her fist flying just to the side of Eliot's ducked head. "Not a word " she kicked him in the side of his left, bad, knee. "Not so much as a WHISPER-" another punch, this time deflected by Eliot's forearm. "Not a stupid NOTE-" Another spinning kick, which Eliot shoved away so the girl spun back around the way she had come. She brought her knee up and kicked her foot out to knock the wind out of the Hitter she was attacking. "Not ANYTHING in TEN months!" She lunged and her elbow barely missed Eliot's nose. "And now THIS!" She brought her knee back up; connecting again with Eliot's stomach, just off her mark of his solar plexus. "You BASTARD!"

Eliot shoved the knee away and continued to dodge and block the onslaught of attacks. He shifted, never quite comfortable with the ease of the dance/fighting-style the girl had somehow created. "I thought-" he deflected her fist with his forearm, "you WANTED it that way!" The barrage of attacks didn't seem to be slowing by any means, and Eliot groaned as a Shakira song came on, and he knew that he would never be able to counter the barrage of attacks the song would bring. "As I recall it—" He grunted as her knee finally found it's mark in his solar plexus. He took a deep breath that hurt more than he would ever willingly admit and leapt forward as his opponent turned in preparation of another back-kick, he looped his arms around hers and planted his feet, lifting her slightly off the ground. "YOU turned down MY proposal!" He shouted.

The rest of his team stared in a mix of hurt and amazement at his sudden admission. They finally understood why Eliot had been spending every free moment when they weren't on a case in the ring for the past ten months. They were confused by his slip in accent, and could not understand how their resident hitter had a woman he loved and never told any of them about.

The girl seemed to go limp and suddenly slid right out of Eliot's grip, and she turned to attack again, bringing her knee up to his ribs. Eliot countered by gripping her knee to his ribs, and holding the back of her head in a loving way as his right foot pulled the girl's heel out from under her, sending them both down to the matt and he crushed his mouth over hers.

"RASPUTTEN!" A deep rumbling voice positively roared, as a large very well-built man launched himself from somewhere behind the four shocked spectators straight over the three ropes and into the ring. His fist connected with Eliot's shoulder and actually caused the professional hitter to fly into the ropes on the opposite side of the ring.

Sophie and Parker screamed out at the action, Nate and Hardison yelling, "Hey!" And "What the hell?!"

"Shit." Eliot cussed as he looked up and into the most frightening steel blue eyes ever.

"Dad!" The girl sprung up and landed on her feet next to the new-comer. She sighed in indignation.

"DAD?!" Eliot questioned from where he sat propped up on his elbow, his back against the ropes.

The girl's eyes fell and she looked slightly admonished by Eliot's tone. "Yeah, well, you've missed a few things."

The large-built man took a step forward and pointed at Eliot. "Touch her again, bub, and you won't be moving for a month." He sneered.

"Again," The girl said, angrily, "Dad!"

"Logan…" Eliot slowly stood and kept his posture slouched. "I…Katya." He turned to the girl, his voice small, like a child who had just been scolded, and in the same strange accent again.

"A few weeks after you…left, last year…we, well we got into with the Brotherhood again, and I had to have a blood transfusion…we discovered my…uh-slightly disturbing lineage when there was a paternal match on hand at the institute." She shrugged.

"Katherine," Logan nudged her slightly more behind his bulky form. "I'll deal with this part…go wait with the others."

"Not likely." She rolled her eyes. She half turned as Eliot's teammates joined him in the ring.

"Back off, you bloody bastard!" Sophie yelled at a slightly amused Logan.

"Who the hell do you think you are? You could have broken his clavicle!" Parker yelled.

Logan laughed. "If he can't handle that, then he's more soft than ever."

"Guys." Eliot's tone turned into a warning.

"How long does this really take?" Another new voice echoed through the gym. A black man with an eye patch walked in, looking completely annoyed; another group of men followed behind him.

"Fury." Eliot growled.

"Aw, naw, man, Eliot, your shoulder's gonna need to rest." Hardison tried to hold Eliot back as he straightened to his full height.

"Well, damn, did I miss something; I thought you were the best and toughest son of a bitch ever a part of my team…_Eliot Spencer_." Fury laughed quietly.

"Eliot?! Really?" Another new voice laughed.

"Not a WORD, Stark!" Eliot roared, sounding incredibly like Logan.

"Wow." Said the brunette man, ignoring the warning in Eliot's tone and posture. "Isn't it a bit…creepy, Kathy?" He smirked toward the girl beside Logan, who now had been called by three different names. "That your boy-toy modeled his accent and speech patterns after your dad?"

"TONY!" Eliot shrieked.

The man's face finally lost it's grin as he took in the group surrounding his former teammate. "Oh…sorry."

"Tony…Tony Stark…man, you know Tony Stark and…what, just _forget_ to mention it to me?" Hardison admonished, his tone awed at the other man's name.

"Ubber-geek, meet super-nerd, and vice-versa." Eliot introduced the two sarcastically.

"Ah! My young Comrade in Arms!" The tall blonde man behind Fury bellowed.

"Someone shut him up!" Eliot ordered, his southern drawl dropping away and a tight Russian accent replacing it. Sophie drew away from his side, looking as if she'd been slapped.

Parker was equally upset, but her face only held confusion. Hardison stepped back next to Sophie and pulled Parker with him. Nate seemed to be the only calm one in the room.

A somewhat shorter brunette man in all black put a hand on the blonde man's shoulder, urging him to wait quietly. The last dark-haired man stood furthest from anyone and seemed to be taking in everything with a look of controlled tension.

"What happened to our little shy-kid-in-a-monstrous-body?" Tony Stark asked, oblivious to the tension, until Kathy shot him a dirty look and jerked her head slightly in the direction of Eliot's new team.

Nate patted Eliot on the shoulder and nodded towards their team. "Um…El, now may be a good time to-uh-be a little more forth-coming about your…past." He said gently, earning a questioning look from Eliot.

Eliot turned his attention away from everyone in the room, and focused on the only person that mattered to him at the moment. "So what was I supposed to do after you shoved my ring away, darlin'?" He ignored Tony's chuckle and stared intently at Kathy.

"Dammit…_Eliot_. I turned you down because you have a FAMILY now!" She gestured to the people standing closest to him. "And you live _here_! Across the friggin' _country_!"

"People get married all the time when their families are on opposite sides of the continent!" Eliot objected.

"Yeah, that's when they choose between the families or live some place between the two! I _can't _leave my family and neither can you!"

"Do you realize how easy it would be to convince them to live in New York? Just a subway ride away from Manhattan?!"

"You have no intention of ever telling them about…_us_…about _yourself_!" She finally argued her real reason for saying "no" to Eliot's proposal.

"Because if I did…if they rejected me…where would I have to go, Katya? I'm really not the…Lone Wolf they think I am…and if you don't want me, really where could I go?!" Eliot's voice turned child-like, the shy boy he used to be when he first met Kathy.

"Dammit." Kathy whispered and ran the few feet separating the two, Nate barely had enough time to step back before his friend was tackled in a loving embrace by the bouncy brunette. "You should know that I will _always_ want to be with you…I thought…I just thought that…that you were still…were ashamed of what we are…of me." She admitted quietly.

"Darlin'" Eliot sighed and pulled back to look at the small girl questioningly at her slightly strangled chuckle.

"Ya know, it _is_ slightly disturbing now…the accent thing."

Eliot smiled, then the expression turned sad. He turned toward the accusatory looks from three members of his team. "Guys…"

"And this is why we should have just left him out of this." Fury sighed.

"I doubt he would ever forgive you for throwing his team into S.H.I.E.L.D. cells." Logan drawled, slightly amused by the thought.

Eliot growled, literally, and even Sophie looked shocked at the sudden anger on his face. "You even _think_ of doin' somethin' like that to _my_ team, you will find yourself in a _very_ shallow grave!" He promised.

"Why would you even need us out of the way, Mr. Fury?" Nate asked calmly. "It's not like you can't operate in this city without letting us know you're here."

"I don't recall having met you before, Mr…" Fury's voice drifted off.

"Ford. Nate Ford. I know Xavier…and have heard plenty about you." Nate said evenly. His anger surprised his team, but Eliot was the one who gripped his shoulder and spun him to face his team.

"NATE?! What the HELL?" Eliot shrieked shocked.

"I told you, Eliot; I looked into each of you before we decided to do…this." Nate replied calmly. "When I realized you were…who you were, I just asked the Professor's opinion of you. He said you were a good man."

"Wait…how did you know the Prof?"

"Well, Sam would probably be attending the institute this year, had his X-Gene been active…" Nate shrugged, slightly amazed that his son's name did not cause him the pain it normally did.

"Wait! You—you're…" Eliot trailed off.

"No, not me…" Nate sighed. "His mom."

"Holy…" Eliot's eyes were huge. "Wait…your ex-wife…is…THEE Maggie?!"

"You married MAGGIE?!" Logan appeared as shaken as anyone had ever seen him. "And you're ALIVE?"

"You divorced Maggie and lived?!" Katherine was incredulous.

"She'd given up…all of that; by the time we got together." Nate explained, off handedly.

Sophie's raised eyebrows and somewhat disapproving frown showed her curiosity at the exchange, and made Nate blush, slightly.

Eliot shook off the uncomfortable feelings, before realizing another awful truth. "WE CONNED _MAGGIE_?"

"You _WHAT_?!" Logan asked, clearly appalled.

"You had us CON _Maggie_? Nate…you ASSHOLE!" Eliot's chest felt heavy; suddenly he could not get enough oxygen.

"Okay," Fury broke in, "you can discuss your…bosses little…mental lapse…later. Right now, we are here to tell you to _stay away from Ikol_."

Hardison's head whipped around comically to stare at Fury angrily. "Yeah, you want us to stay away from the company that authorized genetic experimentation on minors? Yeah, y'all are nuts!"

"Why does our new case concern you…people anyways?" Parker asked, suspicious as always.

"It just does." Fury stated evenly.

"Talk to her like that again, Fury," Eliot snapped, "and your head will be on a pike!"

"He's right, though, Tin-man." Tony spoke up, his tone serious for once. "You all should just leave it alone."

"No!" Sophie spat, angrily. "Tanya Greggs' son is now a monster because of that company! The CEO is going down tonight! This is what we do!"

The tall blonde man took another step forward, shaking off the two still-silent brunette's hands. "My lady, we mean you no disrespect; but this…job…it is not a job your team is going to be able to solve…"

"Legolas! Control Goldielocks!" Stark motioned for the other man that had been beside the tall blonde to step back.

"Yeah," The man called Legolas replied sarcastically, "I'll get right on that."

"Guys, shut up." Eliot commanded.

"I just can't believe that you allowed your team to take this mission!" Fury said, staring at Eliot.

Eliot stared at Fury in confusion before it dawned on him. "Oh, hell, I missed the update meeting, I had to finish up on a job and then came here to finalize a few things for the tournament the gym is hosting next month." He turned to his team. "Guys, we're off this job. Nate, call Mrs. Greggs and tell her that Professor Charles Xavier will be contacting her within the next couple of days to explain everything to her, and will hopefully be able to help her son to…be the boy he used to be."

The Leverage Crew stared at Eliot in surprise, having heard him speak more in the half-hour they had been in the gym than ever before.

Before Nate could finish nodding his head, Sophie spoke up. "So who or should I say _what_ are you, Eliot…Piotr…Rasputen…_Tin-Man_!" Her voice rose slightly with each name she called him, that she practically shrieked "Tin-Man".

Eliot looked pained as he turned to look at each of his team members. Hardison looking pained and disappointed, Parker looking ready to cry, and Sophie looking angry and hurt and confused. Nate, already knowing the explanation, looked apologetic and tried to console Sophie with an arm over her shoulders. She shrugged it off and turned on him.

"You've known this _whole time_ that Eliot-_OUR ELIOT_-was hiding this huge secret and you've never once even tried to convince him that it would be for the best that we knew? Or that it would be okay and that we wouldn't judge him for anything?! Don't bloody _touch me_!" She yelled, tears forming in her eyes as they shifted to Eliot. Eliot blanched beneath her gaze, shamefully. "And you!" She pointed at his chest. "We know you're no angel. We know you've done things you're not proud of. We know you've killed. We know you've had to hide things for our safety…You should know that we wouldn't give a DAMN if you had two bloody heads! You are OUR Eliot! I don't care that that isn't your name, it's not like I go by my real name. I care that you couldn't find the decency in your heart to tell us the truth about yourself! We've all struggled with it, but YOU are the reason most of us have spilled our guts to each other! What happened to "you don't con your own crew"?" Eliot flinched as each new verbal blow hit home.

"I told you not to be like me." Logan said when Eliot cast a helpless glance at Katherine.

"I'm not like you, Logan." Eliot said quietly.

"Okay, let's start with this…you joined the Army to use your abilities to help people. Then someone noticed your abilities and recruited you to their special ops force where you realized that you were causing more harm than good with your abilities. So you took off and did what you had to do to survive…then you started living like you have no abilities at all…tell me, kid, how many nightmares do you wake up from in a month with your room trashed from your own thrashing?" Logan's arms were crossed over his chest, weight balanced on the balls of his feet; a complete Eliot-esque stance as far as the Leverage team could see.

"Dear God…" Eliot stated quietly, reluctantly, "I am you…"

"Aaaaand NOW it's REALLY disturbing." Stark joked, trying to ease everyone's tense moods. "You know," He explained, "The whole accent-speech-patterns thing?" He shrugged when everyone just looked at him like he was crazy.

"There's somethin' wrong with you, Stark." Eliot stated, flatly, and Parker giggled.

"Usually he's saying that to me!" She laughed, causing Eliot to give her the same look he had given Stark. "See?" She smiled, causing Eliot to grin a little, too.

"Okay…am I the only one lost on the whole 'abilities' thing?" Hardison asked, not amused at the by-ply that typically had him laughing. Parker sobered up and wrapped her arm around Hardison's waist.

Eliot took a deep breath and looked to Katherine again. She smirked at him and said, "Look, I've been helping the Prof. with recruiting for the past couple of years…do you want me to start?" Eliot nodded, not quite able to maintain eye contact with any member of his team other than Nate.

"Okay," Katherine started, "We'll start with the basics of Evolution. Evolution happens over hundreds of thousands of years…but every few Millennia Evolution takes a leap forward, and we call that leap a Mutation."

"Okay, so what's with the Sixth-grade Science lesson?" Hardison asked irritably.

"Well…we've been seeing these…mutations is humans since about 1546-"

"43." Logan interjected.

"Sorry, _1543_, anyway, these mutations…they are giving humans new…abilities…" She glanced at Eliot, "This is typically where we give a…demonstration." At his nod, Katherine smirked and allowed her molecules to vibrate so quickly that she fell through the matt at her feet and walked off to where Fury stood, impatiently waiting to speak.

The Leverage crew's faces were all shocked as Katherine climbed back into the ring and phased through her father to walk back to Eliot's side. "Now, no two mutants have the EXACT same powers. And a mutant may pass-on the X-gene that carries the mutation, but their children will not have any powers unless it is an "active gene" sort of like you carry the recessive gene for green eyes, but your kids have brown eyes because it's a more dominant trait."

Hardison couldn't find his voice. His mouth kept starting to open then it would shut again as he tried to process the information. Sophie just cast a glance around the room and finally stared at Nate, silently questioning him with her eyes. He smiled comfortingly at her and shrugged. Parker's reaction shocked everyone, though. The perky blonde jumped up and shrieked.

"You mean I'm not the only one? There isn't anything wrong with me?"

Eliot felt like he could have been blown over by a feather. Hardison yanked his arm off of her shoulders and turned her to face him head-on.

"Woman…What do you mean, 'I'm not the only one?'?"

"I mean…I can do that, too!" She smirked. "Well, not EXACTLY that, but close enough!" She smiled happily.

"Parker." Eliot's raspy voice was tinged with his natural Russian accent. "What exactly is it that you can do?"

"I-I don't know how to explain it…when I'm jumping off buildings or down an airshaft," Fury's face was rather amusing to Eliot at Parker's casual mention of her two favorite activities. "I can…it's like I can move the air through my body so I can slow myself down or I can…I don't know, it's like I pull into myself so that I'm heavier and fall faster."

"Parker?" Katherine interrupted, "I think what you are actually doing is a lot like what I do, I phase-pass through solid objects-by vibrating my molecules so fast that they bounce between the molecules that make up other objects. You just expand or contract your molecules to control your density. Pretty nifty power for a thief." Katherine smiled at the other woman.

Hardison shook his head and tucked Parker back underneath his arm. "That's my girl." He said, rolling his eyes.

Sophie still looked confused. "So what is it you can do, Eliot?" She asked.

Eliot blushed and looked down suddenly more bashful than he'd been since he first entered Xavier's mansion at 18. "I-uh-well…" Suddenly everyone could hear metal sliding against metal, and although Eliot continued to look like himself, he had grown a good foot and a half, and his bulk expanded with him. His voice took on a metallic sound as well, "Since gaining full control of my powers my skin doesn't look metal, but that's what it is."

Parker, being Parker, had to poke him. She jumped up and down like a child on a sugar-high, laughing as she poked him again and then tried to squeeze his arm.

"He really is made of metal!" She announced happily.

Nate was shocked for the first time that evening, and Sophie was livid.

"You mean to tell me that you have _this_ power and yet you have allowed yourself to get broken bones and be bruised and…busted up for weeks being our Hitter?! Not to mention the times you've been shot, or just shot at!"

"You WHAT?!" Katherine yelled, shoving the metallic man at her side, not that it made him move. "You could have been killed!"

"He was trained by me." Logan interrupted, "No, he would never have been killed. And how many times have we trained with no powers-just in case?"

"Training is one thing. An inhibitor collar impairing our powers is one thing. But stupidly just not using your abilities to protect yourself? That is ANOTHER!" Katherine yelled.

"Does anyone remember the reason we are all here?" Fury sighed. Suddenly everyone was silent, Fury's team anxious, and the Leverage crew confused. "We need to talk." He said to Eliot.

Eliot returned to his normal size and nodded to the older man. "My team can hear anything you have to say."

Suddenly the man that Tony had called Legolas spoke up. "Really, it may be better if you talk with Fury alone."

"Cliff," Eliot said his name in a warning tone. "Wait…" He looked over the assembled group and realized something wasn't right. "Where is Natasha?" He asked, anxiously. "Where? Where is my sister?" Suddenly he was in his metallic form again, his anxiety and instincts over-ruling his common sense, momentarily.

"She's why we're here." Fury said.

This time the interruption came from the tall blonde child-like man. "I am sorry, my young friend. My brother is this…CEO as you call him…He has taken Natasha."


	2. Arguments and Plans

**Okay, this storyline just kept circling in my head, so I had to write it out…Hope everyone is enjoying it, and in case there was any confusion; Eliot is really Piotr Rasputen, and Natasha is really Illyana Rasputen. Oh, and I gave the Maggie from the early X-Men comics powers she could control, maliciously at that!**

**Oh, and I don't own anything other than the story, Boo for me.**

Eliot's face drained of all color. He could not find his voice, and his mind was screaming at him to _do_ _something, anything_! He wanted to hit something, someone, he wanted to fall apart. The raw pain he hoped never to feel again clutched his gut. Natasha…his Illyana…was kidnapped, again.

"How long?" He whispered.

"Two weeks." Everyone avoided Eliot's eyes as Fury delivered the information.

Eliot's temper cooled, he rallied within himself for the control he had held onto for dear life for so long, and finally pulled out of his metal form. Katherine slipped beneath his arm to press her body to his. She knew exactly what he was feeling right then, and wanted him to know that he wasn't as alone as he felt. Sophie's hand touched his shoulder as Parker grabbed his hand. Hardison clapped his hand on Eliot's back and Nate squeezed the shoulder Katherine was standing beneath. He broke out of his reverie to find his team…no, his family, standing with him. Even Logan was leaning against the ropes beside Nathan and giving him a small grin, which he knew meant that the older man was on his side.

"How did you let it go on for this long?" Eliot asked.

"You know Natasha…she likes her space, and she was going under-cover again. So we gave her the seventy-two hours she asked for to get herself established…we gave it an extra day, and then we started looking for her. She was gone." Fury sighed, frustrated by all of the dead ends he kept running into. "We finally figured out that the guy we were after was one of…Ikol's many aliases."

"I am sorry, my young brother in arms," The large blonde man spoke to Eliot again. "It seems that we had not defeated him as soundly as we had thought." He looked like an abashed puppy. Parker made a small whimper at his distraught face.

"Why did you wait this long to come to me?" Eliot seethed.

"Well, if it hadn't been for Clint going through Nat's room," Tony laughed, "I don't think we would have even known where to start looking!"

Eliot's face turned red, then suddenly cleared as an evil smile appeared. "I think I'll let Natasha deal with you for that one."

Clint visibly swallowed and glanced around the room, the other men on his team giving him odd half-smiles. Eliot cocked an eyebrow and stared hard at the man who had yet to utter a word.

"Bannon." Eliot said the name as command, he had noticed that the man seemed ill at ease with the sudden turn in conversation, and knew he would be the easiest to get to talk. The man looked up cautiously and stepped closer, still keeping his distance from either group. He sighed and stared hard at Clint who sent him a pleading glance.

"What. Is. Going. On. With. My. Sister?!" Eliot growled. "And why is Clint suddenly everyone's joke?"

Clint sighed and did what the others on his team never thought he would; "We've been…Natasha and I have been dating…she said she was going to tell you after this assignment."

Bannon looked grateful to have the mutant's attention off of him and tried to fade back into the background. He knew his nerves were shot from the events of the past two weeks and anything could set him off.

Eliot's knuckles turned white as he gripped the rope he was leaning over. He seethed, his chest rumbling with a low growl. Sophie reached around him and, to the shock of Fury's team, moved to plant herself between Eliot and Clint.

"Eliot." Sophie's accent soothed the man as she spoke, calming him with her tone as much as her words. "Right now, let's focus on getting to your sister. She needs you, and I've never known you to get distracted from someone who needs you."

Katherine smiled at the older woman thankfully. She glanced at her team on the floor and noticed how Tony had placed himself in front of Clint. She was glad that despite all of the ribbing and tension within the group that they had all become their own family. With a pointed look to her dad, Katherine phased herself and Eliot out of the ring; she waited while the rest of his crew climbed from the elevated matt and turned her attention to Nate.

"We will be needing Eliot for this mission. I'm sure that once you contact Xavier he will help you with Mrs. Greggs. We'll work on getting her son out from under…Ikol's control as well."

"Yo, look," Hardison said, pulling Parker closer to his side when she stepped towards Katherine. "We're a team. We can help y'all out with this. I mean, we can stay in the background. But where our boy goes, we go!"

"You don't understand this situation." Fury replied levelly.

Eliot stepped up to the older man, the threat emphasized by his scowl. "I said…do _not_ talk to my team that way again!" His voice remained pitched low, which only made the words more menacing. "Next time I won't hold back from hitting you."

"Hey," Tony stepped up, hands up, palms out. "Uh, we all know just how dangerous Goldilocks' brother is…and we, uh, well, we figured out your teams…uh, con." Suddenly Tony looked nervous, yet excited. "It was a _really_ good plan, too…do you all do this kind of stuff a lot?"

Eliot rolled his eyes at the other man's antics. He was not surprised by Hardison's next remark.

"Yo, man. This is what we _do_! And how the hell did you get our plan anyway?" The young man asked, as an after-thought.

"Oh," Tony replied easily. "It was kind of easy once I realized yours was the tech signature that Natasha had programmed Jarvis to impede…" Eliot's sigh cut him off.

"She did _what_?!" Hardison's voice rose a couple of octaves in indignation.

"Uh-yeah, to keep you from finding information on the Avengers…Fury's team…" Eliot turned his head to hide his guilty smile, "I asked Natasha to use Tony's system to block your access to it."

"Man…that's just low." Hardison rolled his eyes.

"We need to get going." Fury said, glancing at the clock on the opposite wall. "Ikol's gala event will be starting in an hour."

"Wait." Parker gripped Eliot's arm as she looked at the rest of the Leverage crew. "We aren't seriously going to just sit here, are we? I mean… it's Eliot's sister. We _have_ to help."

"Parker." Sophie said, reassuringly. "We won't be letting him do this on his own. He has his…old team with him…they probably have a plan…" Suddenly Sophie's eyes brightened with an idea, and she turned her gaze on Nate. A silent conversation followed, leaving Nate with an almost evil grin of his own.

"This…Ikol guy…" He started slowly, "He know's your faces, right? He knows you'll be coming for him because of Natasha, right? Well…why don't you let us run our con on him to distract him?"

The Avengers stared at Nate in confusion, turning as the door opened and another strapping blonde man entered, a shy smile on his face.

"Capsicle…" Stark smirked, "Nice of you to finally join us."

"Hey, Lo—" He cut himself off as he saw the Leverage crew, and glanced towards Eliot.

Eliot grinned in spite of himself at his friend. "Steve…Yeah, it's been an…interesting afternoon." He walked over and shook the other young man's hand. "This is my team, Nate, Sophie, Hardison, and Parker. They…well, let's just say that my secret's out. We were just discussing _Ikol_." He stressed the word slightly, hoping that Steve would get his hint.

"Oh, I was just at the building. He's presenting some new VP…?" Steve looked to Fury for an explanation of the term.

"Vice President of the company." Eliot explained. "Basically his second in command…do you know who it is? At Steve's negative response Eliot let his shoulders droop a bit, until he heard Hardison laughing.

"Seriously, man!? You know I am that good! She was our plan G, dude! This is why you don' need to be missing the update meetings!" Hardison walked across the floor to retrieve the backpack he had come into the gym with, and withdrew a slim laptop. Punching a few keys a woman's picture came up in one of the windows. "Here's your new VP, Emma Frost!" His wide smile slowly faded at the look on his friend's face. "Eliot?" He asked in a small voice.

"Call the Prof. _NOW_!" Eliot commanded, tossing his phone to Logan.

"We can't go in now." Eliot's voice filled with an emotion the Leverage crew had never heard before; defeat. "Not with the White Queen in there."

"Eliot…are you serious…" Nate hardly dared to breathe. "It's the White Queen?"

Eliot nodded to his boss, a man he viewed as a father or brother depending on the situation. "We may need Maggie for this one. At least warn her that Emma is back in play." He whispered. Nate nodded and stepped away, phone already pressed to his ear.

"Dude." Hrdison spoke up, his tone comforting. "She isn't going to be there for the first half hour…maybe a little longer if I stall her plane."

Eliot's face turned hopeful. "Then we'll have to go in as soon as the event starts."

"Let us do this, Eliot." Sophie quietly pleaded. Parker planted herself in front of him, not budging.

"I can go in with…Katherine. Between the two of us, there won't be any way this could go badly. And besides that, Sophie is the CEO's date. It would be weird for her to cancel that now, wouldn't it?"

The Avengers looked shocked and appalled at the announcement. Parker merely smirked childishly at them, enjoying that they had come out with more information that the other team did not have. Eliot looked like he would be sick.

"What do you mean, Sophie is his date?" He asked in a low voice.

"I hooked him last night at the little preview of the event. We had a couple of drinks and he asked that I accompany him tonight." Sophie voice was proud as she shrugged, not seeing it as a problem. "This could help us, I may be able to find out where he has Natasha." Nate rejoined the group and put his arm around Sophie's shoulders.

"Sophie, you don't get it…" Eliot looked at his friend sadly. "This…guy…he isn't just a…guy…he's…"

"He's a mutant, too?" Parker asked.

"No…" Eliot stared helplessly at the tall blonde man with long hair. "They…they aren't mutants…they aren't even…human."

The large man approached the now-apprehensive Leverage crew and smiled his broad child-like grin that somewhat resembled Parker's. "My friends. We are from Asgard. I am Thor, it is a pleasure to meet you."

The Leverage crew stared, all but Parker slack-jawed. The blonde girl looked confused.

"Thor?" She asked Nate.

"The Norse god of thunder." He replied, not taking his eyes off the large man.

"Well, that certainly explains…nothing." Parker was becoming frustrated. "Weren't the gods part of mythology?"

"We are now just known as such." Thor explained. "We came to Earth for some fun and got named gods…it was a rather fun game."

"Thor!" Eliot interrupted, not amused. "Your brother…?"

"Ah, yes, well, my father went to Jotunheim, where the Frost Giants live, when we were at war with them. When he killed Laufey, their king, he brought his newborn son to Asgard where I am from. He raised Loki as his own, even I did not know my younger brother was a Frost Giant. But Loki has always been power-mad. He has returned to Earth again…this time he is obsessed with your _corporate_ hierarchy." Thor explained.

"Wait!" Nate interrupted, "You mean that _Loki_ the trickster-god is Ikol's CEO?"

"He just spelled his name backwards, what a douche!" Hardison rolled his eyes. Most of the Avengers laughed at the techies description. Even Eliot chuckled at his friend's apt depiction of Loki.

"Yes, well," Nat said, clearing his throat, "Our plan may be the only shot at getting Natasha out alive. Maggie is hopping on a flight right now, she's been in London." He told Eliot, "Angel will be meeting her as soon as she lands in New York, and he'll fly her here. No need to have her name on a plane log and alert Loki." Nate shook his head slightly, rolling his eyes, amazed at how easy it was for him to discuss gods and mutants like they were anyone.

"The Prof is on the way in the X-jet." Logan updated everyone, tossing Eliot back his phone. "Rogue and Remmy are just a block away."

Eliot nodded. "I never thought I'd say this, but, thank God for Rogue and Remmy." The Avengers all laughed their agreement.

"We can send Rogue and Shadow Cat in," Fury decided. "They can use the air ducts and Rogue can take out any guard without much attention."

"What about us?" Parker asked, taking a step toward the one-eyed man.

"You'll stay out of this. It does not concern you any further."

Eliot's fist flew out of it's own accord and landed squarely on Fury's jaw, successfully shoving him back a good foot and a half. "You _will NOT_ disregard my team like that! And they were right, Sophie will have to be there as Loki's…" He swallowed hard, "date."

"And we are not sending her in there alone!" Nate spat vehemently. "Parker will go with your crew in the air ducts, that way they can get out if Frost shows up unexpectedly and Parker can continue on to Natasha. She's good at thinking of multiple objectives, and can surely stay under the White Queen's radar. I have an invite as a potential investor, so I will be on the floor with Sophie. Seeing as Eliot cannot be used as a body guard, I guess he'll be with your team." Eliot could see the wheels turning in Nate's mind as he reworked the plan to accommodate all of the new twists. He wondered briefly, and not for the first time, if Nate were a mutant after all with some sort of mental power to control events. "I'm sure that Natasha will be trying to escape or be drugged. So we'll need two separate escape plans and two routs for each plan." He was mumbling to himself when Parker voiced Eliot's earlier thoughts.

"Are you sure you aren't a Mutant, Nate? I mean, your plans somehow bend the laws of nature to do fall exactly into your little plots!" Parker grinned.

"That would explain rather a lot." Sophie joked quietly.

Nat silenced the girls with a look and finally looked to Fury. "Alright. Parker and…Rogue and Shadow Cat will go in through the air ducts, Parker already found the shaft that will take them into the building from underground. I will keep an eye on Sophie, and watch for signs that her cover is blown," He turned to the woman he loved, "And I will try and figure out whatever tricks, if any, he starts playing…Eliot, I know you really just want to kick his ass right now, but I need you partnered with Clint. I take it from the 'Legolas' nickname that you're an archer?" At Clint's nod Nate continued with the plan.

At the end of his explanation, and a short rehash for Rogue and Remmy when they arrived, even Fury looked convinced that Nate's plan would actually work.

"How are you so sure that Loki will do what you need him to?" Fury asked.

"Because, Mr. Fury, this is what we do." Nate smiled slightly, his eyes narrowing momentarily. Fury's thoughts returned to what Parker had said, and wondered how to ask Xavier for confirmation that Nate was a mutant.

"A' leas' i' will be fun if all goes ta plan!" Said Remmy, his Cajun accent confusing and intriguing Parker. "Ma belle etoile;" He gripped Rogue's hip, earning a growl from Logan and a sigh from Rogue. "Ma Cher will take care, non?" He asked, his tone implying it as a command.

"Ah'll be fahn…swamp-rat." Rogue grinned shyly up at her boyfriend who grinned back.

Parker looked between the couple in confusion. "What did they just say?" She asked Eliot loudly.

Eliot shook his head and translated, "Ma belle etoile means 'My beautiful star' then he asked/told her to take care-be careful-and she said she'd be fine."

"Why did she call him a swamp-rat?" Parker's questions caused Eliot's face to become bright red.

"Because he's Cajun…from Louisiana…where there are a lot of swamps." He replied.

"Ooooh," Parker finally nodded. "I'm glad that your Southern accent isn't as hard to understand as hers is." Parker turned to Katherine and began asking for tips on how to control her powers. Eliot shook his head, his face in his signature 'there's something wrong with you' look he was constantly giving the blonde he now thought of as a younger sister.

The Avengers traded amused looks and the Leverage crew started walking towards the doors as Nate surmised the plan in five word, as usual, and in doing so made the goal seem that much more impossible; "Let's go steal a god!"


	3. What the Leverage Crew Does

**Thank You to those of you who have decided to "Follow" this story, I hope I meet your expectations with this story.**

**I do not own anything other than the story-line, Boo for me.**

Nate glared at his glass of Scotch, listening to Sophie giggling, and seeing her arm looped through Loki's as they descended the grand staircase that led into the make-shift ballroom. He hated this job sometimes. He heard Tony chuckle over the coms, which irritated him further. The techno-geek, as Eliot had dubbed him, was utterly fascinated with Lucille, and everything that Hardison would do from the van. They had outfitted Nate's shirt and Sophie's clutch with button cams so they were able to see as well as hear everything going on; and with Nate having positioned himself at the bar, facing a mirror so that he could watch the staircase from the corner of his eye, those in the van, which was parked across the street and slightly to the right of the Ikol Corporation, could see the scowl on his face.

Parker had dropped three more listening devices strategically around the room, using her usual wait-staff disguise to get herself past security. She finally made her way to the utility closet behind the kitchen and stripped off the waitress uniform to reveal the tight black unitard and climbing harness that she wore beneath. Katherine, or Shadow Cat as the Leverage crew had been told to call her when she wore her black and purple uniform, stuck her head and arm through the wall to pull Parker back with her. Rogue quickly snapped the harness to Parker's equipment as she had been shown to so that the quirky blonde would not fall to the basement. The girls grinned at one another and started up the lines that Shadow Cat had fed through the shaft from the ceiling.

"You know," Parker said in her typical childlike voice, "My job would be _so_ much easier if I could do what you do!" Shadow Cat and Rogue both laughed quietly.

"Parker." Eliot's voice growled in her ear. "Find Natasha and get her out of there! You can bond later."

Parker grunted in response and her face changed, her expression closed off and her eyes flat as she focused on her objective. Rogue glanced at Shadow Cat worriedly, she'd never heard Piotr speak so harshly to a female before. Shadow Cat silently shook her head and shoved Rogue upward to follow the thief.

The three girls would stop on each floor, sweep the hallway and plant the micro-cameras that Hardison had given them, and search the rooms for Natasha.

Finally, Hardison broke in on the chatter in the coms, "Parker, I've got her. They are holding Natasha about three floors up from where you are. They have a section of the floor on Security lock-down, so you are going to have to go up and crawl over to the…it looks like the third office from the end of the hallway. She'll be in there. I'm not sure about guards, so Shadow Cat, do you think you can get me some eyes in that hallway without you having to phase through the wall yourself?"

"Yeah, I can do that." Shadow Cat said, still adjusting to the odd feeling of the com in her ear, and that there were so many voices in her head, when none of them were psycic. She nodded to the other two that were dangling with her in the air shaft and they climbed up three more floors. "Alright, floor 28…Jesus, have we really climbed this far up in spelunking harnesses?" She held another micro-camera so that she could pass it through the wall, as close to the corner, and hopefully in a shadow, as she could. "Alright, you got eyes, boys?"

Bannon was heard cursing, his voice wavering slightly with anxiety, and Rogue immediately began speaking to him softly. "We'ah fahn, Bruce. Calm ya self dawn. Tell meh how manay ahr theya?"

"Three armed guards." Tony said, tearsly, his hand on Bruce's shoulder as he slid between his teammate and his view of the camera feed.

"And we ain't talkin' just guns." Hardison broke in, his voice pitched higher with tension. "I mean, these guys have somethin' that looks like a…Tommy-Gun on steroids, man! And they have tons of little things on their belts…Eliot, how fast can you get there, man?"

"Hey," Shadow Cat said, indignantly. "Who said we needed to be saved by some man? We got this covered."

Eliot could be heard breathing deeply over the coms. "Tony?" He asked, "Do they need me?"

"Naw. Let's get them to the room and if there are guards like this in there, then I'll suit up and get in there…what?" He grinned at the look Hardison was giving him. "You think I'm just the pretty face behind the computers in this group?"

"Man of Iron," Thor bellowed over the coms, not lowering his typical volume despite several pleas from his teammates to do so. "It would not be wise for you to go in, we will give away our plans, and I am rather enjoying this attempt to pull a joke on my brother…it has been too long coming…I think I have a pair!" He practically shouted. Remmy was teaching Thor and Steve how to play poker, and was beginning to regret his role in this con.

"Guys," Parker broke in, her voice serious, she had yet to smile or joke since Eliot had gotten on to her earlier. "Just tell me what's on the new camera." She had already made her way over to the room Natasha was being held in and had Shadow Cat phase a camera through the ceiling.

"Damn, woman." Hardison smirked as he shook his head and studied the new feed. "Aight, she looks like she's…alone." His sudden serious tone had Eliot's breathing turn erratic, so he gave the details as quickly and concisely as he could. "She's laid out on a couch, she looks fine, but there's something around her neck…it looks kid of bulky…"

"Inhibitor collar." Shadow Cat swallowed compulsively. "They have her in an inhibitor collar…which means they've been in contact with either Hydra or Magneto." Eliot's pained growl in her ear tore at her heart.

"It's fine, guys." Nate whispered, turning his head slightly to hide the fact that he was speaking to himself. "I'm about to walk up to Loki, everything is going according to the plan, don't get off track. I'm about to be up, Hardison, how's it looking for me?"

"Oh, baby, you don' have a thing to worry about. I told you, I got this!" Hardison lounged back in his chair, exuding confidents. "You have about ninety seconds Nate. Make 'em count!" He smiled at the screen that played Nate's button-cam feed.

"Mr. Ikol!" Nate smiled widely, his voice hitching in a typical Boston accent.

"Wow…how many accents can you guys do?" Clint asked.

Hardison laughed, "Man, he had a while to learn the Boston-speak when we had our headquarters there. But he does a pretty funny southern, or New-Yorker…Soph has even played two parts in one con where she used a Southern accent for one character and a South African one for the other!"

"Hardison," Eliot warned, "We're trying to hear!"

"Yes, well," Loki was saying, his voice smooth. "I have heard about your little…plot from my date, here." He smiled at Sophie, and Nate had to step back slightly so he wouldn't slug the demi-god.

Fury harrumphed at the camera's slight change and spoke for the first time, "Yeah, it's hard not to want to beat him down, I know…the others just arrived." He nodded to the camera feed from the roof that Hardison had looped for the internal security, and kept an eye on from Lucille.

Hardison's face went slack at the sight on the camera before a beep from his computer had him looking at the first screen. Shadow Cat and Rogue jumped into the van through the back door just as he announced, "The White Queen has arrived."

Emma Frost was as youthful and gorgeous as ever, thanks to her mutation. She walked in to the gala event in a long gown that looked like it had been made from millions of diamonds. She walked gracefully and purposefully to Loki's side, not turning her eyes from her goal. She leaned forward and spoke in low tones in Loki's ear. His face lit up for a moment and then he turned to Nate with a look that clearly said he was through with the other man. Nate pretended not to understand and turned to Emma.

"I'm sorry, Miss. But I do not believe I know your name. And for such a…beautiful woman, surely that is a mistake on my part." He said in his best Bostonian impersonation.

Her ice-blue eyes bore into Nate's and suddenly he was turning back to Loki, apologetically. "I'm sorry, but I have forgotten some business I have, elsewhere. Good night." With a nod Nate turned and walked out of the building without hesitation. He smirked a bit as he glanced up to the roof of the building before climbing into the front of Lucille.

"Like I said," Nate smirked as he turned to face the crowded back of Lucille. "Everything is going according to plan."

Fury rolled his eyes and said, "We'll see…"

Nate laughed silently and laid back in his seat to wait and listened to everything through his com.

"So, my dear," Loki was saying to Sophie. "It seems you have a secret you have been keeping from me." Sophie's eyes widened just slightly for only a fraction of a second, and she tucked her hair behind her ear, using the motion to remove her com. "Not to worry, though. We have even more in common than you would think." He led the women to a private area in the bar, where he could still be seen by the patrons of his event, but not heard. "Sola the Charlantan." He breathed the name in admiration.

Sophie blushed for a moment before regaining her composure. "Now, who would that be?"

Loki smiled mockingly. "Now, Sola, we are all friends here," Using the line that she had said when he first went to blow Nate off. "And honesty between friends is crucial."

"Yes…it is…" She drawled, "Loki." Her elbow came to rest on the table top and her chin lay in her hand, her fingertips caressing her skin there tenderly.

Loki's eyes were riveted to "Sola's" lips. "So, about that deal…"

"Well," Sola spoke quite earnestly, "I think that first we should take another look at the honesty policy…I don't work well with others, and especially not with those who lie to me. Or those with an agenda of their own who wish only to…_use_ me." Her eyes flashed angrily at Emma.

"Emma, dear," Loki turned to his partner, his eyes not straying off of Sola's for very long. "Why don't you let me have a little chat with my new friend, here, and straighten a few things out."

Emma's eyes blazed with hatred before she schooled her expression to a more neutral disinterest. "Sure, Loki. I need to make a stop by the lady's room before our big announcement anyway."

"Temper, temper." Sola tsked and turned her full attention back to Loki.

"What the hell is she doing in there?" Fury growled at Nate.

"I have no idea." Nate replied honestly. Suddenly the chatter in the ear-piece became insistent. "Time to go." Nate started the van and spun it around and drove back to the Leverage headquarters, ignoring the loud complaints and perplexed accusations from the Avengers; Thor loudly calling him a traitor.


	4. Explaining the Con

**I'm trying to capture the essence of Leverage in the way the con has gone down, I hope I got it right. Thanks for reading! And thank you for the review! Glad to know people are enjoying the story!**

**I own nothing but the story-line, Boo for me.**

Thor's voice reverberated in Nate's head; he hated being called a traitor. Katherine phased into the passenger seat beside him and squeezed his arm; she knew from all Elliot had told her about his boss, and how hard this was hitting him. Nate tossed her a grateful smile. He calmly parked the van in front of the Brewery the Leverage Crew owned and climbed from the front seat. He had made it to a barstool, surprisingly enough, before Fury, the two Avengers and the two X-Men from the van descended on him.

"What do you think you are doing?" Tony yelled. "You just left Sophie, who I had taken to be your girlfriend, back there with Loki…Not to mention that she has taken out her communication device!"

Nate just swirled his finger in the air at a pretty, young, waitress and heaved a sigh, listening to the grunts and banging noises he could hear through his com. Amy set a glass of whiskey in front of Nate with a sympathetic smile, "You guys are crazy, you know that?" She had figured out a little bit about her bosses side business since Parker had enlisted her help when the blonde had spotted thieves in the bar and had no use of her leg. "I'll have the others' drinks out in just a few minutes…" She turned to the Avengers, "Pick your poison."

Tony smirked, though his eyes stayed hard, "Scotch, best you can find." Fury nodded his agreement with Tony's order, Bannon and the girls shook their heads. A light _thump-a whump_ and a small skid was heard, hardly causing any patrons to even look up.

"C'mon, order up a drink, everyone else will be in here soon." Nate said, a half-smile playing at his lips as he lifted his glass for a sip. Katherine slid onto the barstool next to him with a soft sigh, her legs were cramping from the climbing she and the other girls had done that night.

Hardison opened the door, holding it wide for Eliot who was cradling Natasha in his arms. Eliot veered off to the back of the restaurant to a more private room, reserved for parties, nodding to Nate as the older man slipped from his barstool and followed him. Katherine smirked at Fury's slack jaw and followed the Leverage Crew's Mastermind. She had been the only calm one in the van, and she stood protectively by Nate's side.

"How in the _hell_ did you pull this off?" Fury demanded just as the rest of the Avengers and Leverage Crew gathered in the private room.

"He is a very smart man." Said a new British voice, his smile could be heard in his words.

"Professor Xavier." Nate nodded in thanks to the man in the wheelchair as he rolled into the room.

"How is she doing, Eliot?" The professor asked, ignoring Fury's aggravated sigh and exaggerated eye roll he typically reserved for Tony.

"She's a lot better since you removed the collar." Eliot's voice was tinged with concern and love for his sister.

"So," Parker said, skipping into the private room with a huge grin, several people following her. "Is it all set?"

"Yes. Sophie's hooked Loki, so we are ready for part two." Nate said with a grin.

A woman with light cocoa skin and white hair stepped up to the Professor, Logan staying protectively close to her. "Charles…are we sure we should be doing things this way? I mean, we are involving innocent people." She nodded toward Nate, Parker, and Hardison who were sticking close by Eliot's side.

"Ororo," The Professor smiled kindly, "There is no way to keep them away, they are Piotr…Eliot's family. They won't leave him to fight this battle without them."

Ororo shook her head and looked at the long haired man who used to belong to her team with a gentle smile. "So it's Eliot now?"

"Yeah," Eliot's face reddened sheepishly.

Parker started bouncing up and down excitedly, bumping Eliot's shoulder with her own. "So how do you have such a great southern accent if you didn't even learn English until you were a teenager?" She had learned a few things when she had helped get Natasha safely back to the Brewery.

"The Prof." Eliot chuckled. "I asked him for help to…reinvent myself…get some distance and perspective…he used his powers to imbed the accent and speech patterns into my brain. Probably the easiest way to learn a language ever." He shrugged, watching his sister slowly come out from under the drug's effects as she lay on a booth.

Parker nodded, satisfied with his answer and turned to Ororo. "So what are your powers?"

Ororo cocked an eyebrow and smiled indulgently, "I am called Storm, as I can control the weather."

"Oooh! Cool." Parker shrugged and moved on in her own version of interrogation. She turned on Logan. "So how about you? I saw how you tossed Eliot across that boxing ring with a single punch, so do you have super-strength?"

Ororo quietly admonished the man in question and glared at him. "He deserved it…trust me." He spoke quickly to Ororo.

Amy entered the room then with two trays of drinks, one with two pitchers of soda and several stacked glasses the other with a pitcher of beer and a bottle of Nate's favorite Scotch. "Should I just bring a couple of bottles back here?" She asked Nate, and then noticed the unconscious Natasha. "Or do you need the medical kit?"

"No, we're good on the medical front," Nate turned to the newcomers, "Anything in particular you prefer to drink?"

"The sodas are Pepsi and Coke, and there's the house beer and Scotch." The waitress explained.

"We should be fine with these for now, thank you." The professor nodded his thanks to the young girl who nodded and left the room.

"Quite the staff," Ororo commented.

"I think she's figured out our side-business." Nate threw a knowing look to Parker who shrugged sheepishly.

"So conning people is your _side_ business?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, man," Hardison spoke up, proudly. "This is our Brewery!"

Logan cocked an eyebrow and eyed the glass of beer he had just poured himself warily.

"It's good," Eliot offered with a grin.

Logan grunted and took a hesitant drink. Nodding his approval he took a longer draw of the amber beverage before setting the glass down carefully. Parker was standing right next to him, eyeing him with curiosity and suspicion; she poked his arm, and then the back of his hand experimentally.

"Your hands are hard." She stated, continuing her inspection. There was not a straight face in the room as the woman who seemed to be more like a girl circled the large-built man, poking at him every now and then.

"Parker!" Eliot admonished, embarrassed by the girl's actions, but amused as well.

Logan held his arm up at his side and three deadly metal blades grew from between his knuckles. "Don't poke me again."

Parker jumped back, clearly surprised, then returned to Logan's side faster than he would have expected. She held his hand and inspected the claws. Logan threw Eliot a helpless look.

"Parker, leave the man alone. You have no idea how many ways he's learned to hurt people with those claws in the last…four hundred and sixty six years." Eliot told the blonde calmly, rolling his eyes heavenward; Katherine had explained to him that Logan had regained his memories in recent months, and Logan had even told him some of his life's more interesting memories.

Parker's head jerked in her friend's direction comically. "Four _hundred_ years?" She looked at Logan's face closely. "Cool." She stated, then turned to walk toward the Cajun man whose accent she adored. "So what're your powers?"

The Cajun just smirked and tossed her a playing card, Eliot protesting loudly. Parker shrieked and jumped when the card exploded in her hand in a flurry of red sparks.

"I didn't charge it too much." The Cajun drawled with a smirk at Eliot. "By de way…I has a question for our ol' tin-man." At Eliot's nod Remmy's face reddened and he looked at the ground for a moment before glancing at Logan and finally letting his gaze settle on Rogue. "Be my best man in June?"

Logan's growl had Eliot grinning. "Of course I will, Remmy! It took you long enough to ask her!"

Rogue was gripping Logan's arm as the man slowly stalked over to the Cajun man. "Logan! Ya can play protective-daddy ovah a lot a' thins but not this!" She said through gritted teeth. "Ah love him!"

Logan stopped and stared hard at the Southern girl, then turned on Remmy, "If she ever cries because of you, you will face me." He said menacingly.

Eliot smiled at Katherine deviously. "I'm still gonna keep my promise, darlin'." Katherine's eyes looked everywhere but at any of the people in the crowded room.

Clint spoke up before Logan could launch himself at Eliot and find out exactly what promise he was talking about. "So what are we going to do about your girl…Sophie?"

Suddenly Thor entered the room with a wide, self-satisfied grin; Steve was lagging somewhat behind him with Sophie, both shaking their heads at the over-exuberant man in front of them. "My friends! You are certainly most amazing in your talents!"

Nate nodded to Sophie questioningly as she joined him at the tall table he sat at. Her answering smile drew an answering one from the mastermind as he leaned in and kissed her quickly, making the Leverage crew grin madly.

Eliot turned quickly, the sudden movement drawing everyone's attention, and helped Natasha to sit up. She stared at him in confusion before launching herself into his arms.

"Piotr!" She cried, her surprise causing her to revert to her natural language. "_How did you…why…It's so good to see you_!" Natasha's back straightened instantly and her tearful smile disappeared as she turned to look around the room. She pulled carefully out of Eliot's grasp and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "What took you guys so long?" She asked in her typical stoic demeanor.

Tony started to laugh, but was silenced by the look Natasha threw him. Clint answered with a small smirk to Tony. "We were trying to find a way to get to you without the world realizing that Loki is here. So that meant stealth, and then we realized that your brother's team were planning on running a con on him…so we had to stop them first."

Natasha swung around to face her brother who shrugged, "I missed the update meeting so didn't see any pictures; I didn't realize that it was Loki."

"And that right there is _exactly_ why no one will miss update meetings anymore!" Hardison said, his tone warning.

Natasha glanced around the room, taking note of who was in the room. "So…" She glanced back at Eliot, "This is your new team?" He nodded and watched as she appraised the people he considered family. Her lips turned down and her eyes drooped sadly for a fraction of a second before she smiled tightly at the Leverage crew.

Eliot was about to ask about the look when Sophie spoke up, a warning look to Eliot in her eyes. "Alright. We are onto phase two of the plan." She said proudly. "Loki now thinks I am Sola the Charlatan from Vanaheim."

"How did you manage to make him believe _that_ with Emma Frost by his side?" Fury asked. Natasha spun around to look at Eliot, fear in her eyes.

"It's fine. She's been…taken care of." Eliot soothed his sister with a hand running through her hair. He glared at Clint as the other man approached and hugged Natasha.

"Leave my boyfriend alone." She told Eliot. The Avengers and X-Men wore various expressions of shock and amusement at her endearment. "Not a word, Stark." She warned, not bothering to look at the billionaire whose mouth had been half open to comment.

Eliot huffed and Logan smirked, saying "Welcome to my world, bub."

"I'm surprised I'm alive," Eliot told the older man, "if you feel this way about my dating Katya."

"You know that thing that's keeping you still right now?" Logan asked, "That's what keeps me from killing you."

Eliot nodded his understanding, "Well, hold onto that feeling for a bit longer." He turned to Katherine, his eyes pleading. "Katya, you know now why I have not ever told my crew before this about my powers or you or the X-men…why I have held so much of myself back these past ten years. Please, can you forgive me for being so stupid?" He dropped onto one knee and captured Katherine's hand in his own. "I love you, and I am hoping that you can love me despite my faults. So, Katherine Anne Logan, will you marry me?" He pulled a small box from his pant pocket, revealing a small white-gold ring with a hammered-gold rose and small canary diamond chip in the center, an emerald leaf jutted out over the band to the right of the rose. Sophie's breath caught and Parker audibly gasped. Nate smiled and Hardison held his fist to his mouth, his eyes somewhat glassy.

Katherine's eyes filled with tears as her lips slowly spread into a wide smile. "Yes, Eliot. Yes, I will marry you!" Eliot leapt to his feet to spin Katherine around in his arms before setting her on her feet and kissing her passionately.

"Logan…" The warning came from four female voices, one of which had the Leverage crew jerking their heads around. Maggie stood in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest and her ankles crossed, she was watching Eliot with Katherine with her head resting on the door frame. A large blonde man stood behind her.

Katherine pulled back from Eliot enough to turn her head towards her father. "Dad…will you walk me down the aisle?" She asked quietly her voice telling him that she wasn't sure he would.

Logan's shoulders sagged and he opened his arms to the girl he had considered a daughter long before the truth had come out. "Yeah, Half-Pint, of course I will." Katherine walked from Eliot's embrace into her father's. She thanked him quietly and sighed when he kissed her hair. He looked over Katherine's head to Eliot, "You know that warning I gave LaBeau?"

"I know, Logan…and I'm going to do my damndest to never hurt Katya in any way." Eliot couldn't stop smiling. He was happy Katherine had agreed and he was happy to also realize that he was proud of the man he had become, and it was that pride within himself that had spurred him into proposing finally.

"Congratulations…to both couples." Xavier smiled at his former students proudly.

Rogue cleared her throat. "Prof? Ah…Ah was wonderin' if ya would escort meh down the aisle?" She asked, shyly.

Xavier's face couldn't have beamed more proudly, "Of course I will, I am honored that you would ask me."

"Sorry to interrupt the wedding plans and all…" Maggie stated as she walked further into the room, "Congratulations, though…" She nodded to the two couples, "But we need to figure out how to deal with the Loki and White Queen situation."

"The White Queen is in S.H.I.E.L.D. custody, currently being transported to the prison where Juggernaut is held." Steve informed her.

Maggie's eyes went wide and she turned to her ex-husband, "So, Nate, are you sure you aren't a mutant? Too many things just bend to your will." Nate smiled and shook his head.

"I have hooked Loki," Sophie told the group. "And with him thinking I am some sort of goddess and that his little psychic is out of the picture, this con will be easier than the San Lorenzo job with Moreau!"

"Moreau?!" The Avengers and X-Men All turned shocked faces toward Eliot.

The typically stoic man shrugged and averted his gaze. "It was take him down or let Nate go to jail…" His eyes held the same pain they had when he first told the Leverage crew that the worst thing he'd ever done, he'd done for Moreau. He turned to his team apologetically. "I wasn't entirely honest with that job either…When I said that the worst thing I had done was for Moreau, well, it wasn't…not exactly. I was a part of a…group… f mutants that was…loaned out to Moreau for the job. It was before I became one of the X-Men, that job sent me running to Professor Xavier, though, for help." He threw a grateful look to his mentor, who nodded. Sophie sent the man she thought of as _her_ hitter/brother a sympathetic look.

"Wait," Said Parker who was lounging back in Hardison's lap in a booth. "What're the X-Men?"

"My students that chose to use their powers to defend people from other mutants who would harm them." Xavier explained easily.

The blonde nodded her acceptance of his response then turned on Maggie. "So you were an X-Man…X-Woman…X-Person?"

Maggie grinned, her look implying a private meaning to the smirk. "I never joined the team; but I did fight with them occasionally. Angel saved my life when I was a child." She explained, "I didn't like hearing that someone was after him."

Hardison shook his head and covered Parker's mouth with his hand to stop her barrage of questions.

"So back to Loki…" Bruce said uneasily. "What're you planning for him?"

"Well," Nate started with an evil grin, "We're going to do what we do best…bring down his little 'evil empire' and give the people he's hurt some compensation from the company assets; we'll let you guys handle Loki himself."

"Now, _how_ are you planning to do this?" Tony asked, thoroughly amused by the entire situation.

"Well, Xavier helped me out on that one." Nate smiled.

"He gave me the memories and thoughts of Sola the Charlatan." Sophie grinned, "Which is why I had to take my com out at the party; sorry if that caused you any worry, Thor." Sophie smirked a little at actually addressing a demi-god. "Couldn't very well let the White Witch hear you guys in my head when I had no idea who you were at the time…Xavier was able to completely hide my own true mind from even myself…something I find to be a very frightening thought now." Sophie's smile faded a bit.

"I never use my gift without permission unless absolutely forced to," Xavier soothed.

Sophie just shook her head. "I'm glad we're on the same side. Anyway, I am going to meet with him tomorrow…Loki thinks that Frost was going to give he and Natasha to the X-Men so that they wouldn't try to hunt her anymore, so when he sent guards to her room to check on her and found nothing there, he was more than accommodating to my suggestion of a partnership."

Nate took up the narrative, "Now here's the plan…"


	5. Planning Phase Two

**Thank you for the Reviews, Faves and Follows! And I was alerted that I haven't really set a time-frame for when this takes place in the series', so it's set after the 5****th**** season of Leverage, and sometime after the movie Avengers…I hope that clarifies things. Oh, and the M rating is for the next chapter (chapter 6)!**

**Oh, and I own only the plot, Boo for me!**

"We're going to make Loki think that he can use Ikol to take over…another _very_ lucrative company." Nate smiled to Hardison. "We're going to make him think that someone is so…infatuated with Norse mythology that he will give up his fortune and company to meet a demi-god;"

"We're going to run the Atlantis…on Loki?" Eliot asked in surprise. "That just might work."

"What is an 'Atlantis'?" Thor asked.

"Atlantis is a…lost continent on Earth…according to legend it sank into the ocean and that people evolved to live there. It's another source of myths that people still become infatuated with and will spend their entire lives searching for." Nate explained.

"So how does this sort of con work?" Asked Bruce.

"Well," Sophie turned to the lean scientist. "Typically, we would make sure that the mark-in this case Loki-is either searching for this…Atlantian dream, or we make him believe himself to be Atlantis. In this version, he actually is the prized Atlantis. The con hinges on our creating a person who is going slightly mad with his obsession with Atlantis, and then offering the treasure to him for the price of his soul—oh, not literally!" She hurried to explain, seeing the disgust on a few of the newcomer's faces. "In this con, the soul is going to be a Fortune 500 company and billions of dollars."

Hardison grinned as he opened his laptop to show a portfolio he had created. "Seeing as we needed to create a slightly-off-their-rocker-billionaire, I thought this would be appropriate." The screen showed a picture of Nate holding a bronzed spear, the caption explaining that Mr. Norris—Nate—was holding a replica of a Norse god's staff. The article that Hardison pulled up told of a recent rant by said Mr. Norris claiming that he knew he could contact the gods and that everyone would pay for making fun of him. Nate's face reddened as he shook his head, laughing silently.

"Did you have to make me a _raving_ lunatic?" Maggie's laughter cut off when Nate glanced in her direction.

Hardison merely smiled and pulled up a digitized video clip of Nate being forcibly removed from a competitor's office building as he shouted all the curses he was going to ensure the gods cast on the other CEO.

Tony looked ready to have a coronary from holding in his laughter as he watched the footage. "So what, you had this planed and staged just in case this ever happened?"

"Naw, man!" Hardison said proudly, "That's all digitally edited. The original footage was of some drunk throwing a fit about his boss being an alien…I just replaced his voice and face with Nate's."

Tony looked impressed and even Bruce moved forward to examine the digital recording. Fury shook his head at the thechies and looked back at Natasha.

"What did you learn?" He asked.

Eliot glared at the older man, "She just woke up; give her some time to process."

"P-Eliot, I'm fine. I think I've even caught up on what's been going on here since I was being held captive." She spat the last words, irritated with herself for being caught. "Loki's little plot isn't all that hard to figure out. I mean, once he takes control of the top companies in the U.S. he plans to branch out across the world and eventually be able to claim the position of Hegemony."

"Heg-a-what-tee?" Parker asked.

"He plans to make the world run under one world order-his." Eliot explained, dryly. "Basically he'll be a dictator of the whole Earth."

"I don't know about the rest of you," Steve broke in, "But I'm not too big on that idea…I mean, Red Skull had the same plans for himself, and I was glad to take him down, but I have no plans to be frozen for another seventy years."

Sophie, Parker, Hardison, and Nate jerked their head towards the young blonde man, the girls falling back onto the booths. "What?!" They chorused.

"You dames alright?" Steve asked, holding his hands out to the women.

"Excuse me?" Sophie was livid with the distasteful title.

"Don't blame him," Eliot smirked, "It was the era he was born in."

"Again," Hardison spoke, "What?"

"Yeah, guys," Eliot gestured to Steve, who had stepped back, realizing the girls were not interested in his help. "Meet Captain America…_the_ Captain America from World War Two…he served with Logan."

The silence was comical. Logan's shoulders hitched in a silent chuckle.

Ororo stepped forward, "I think we have introduced enough secret truths for the night. Let us get back to hearing Mr. Ford's plan."

"Wait," Hardison asked, "Are there _more_ secrets?"

"Yeah," Spoke up Logan, "Don't piss off the quiet one," He jerked his head towards Bruce who took a deep breath.

"That…" Hardison shook his head. "Ya know what? Forget it. Back to the Atlantis con." He helped Parker to sit up as Nate helped Sophie to her feet.

Sophie continued the narrative, moving to sit primly on the edge of the booth's cushion with Parker behind her. "I have already introduced Nate as Mr. Norris. A disgustingly rich bigot whom I am very interested in toying with. I had initially told Loki that Mr. Norris was in the market for a partner to combine assets with so that he could have more time with his hobbies. After he thought I was Sola, I told him about how Mr. Norris was searching for a bridge to the world of the gods…I am not entirely sure why it is called a rainbow bridge, but the Professor had put the memories in my head and I went with them."

"The rainbow bridge was destroyed." Thor told her, "My brother was trying to destroy Jotunheim by focusing the power of the bridge on the Frost Giant's planet…I was forced to smash it." The demi-god looked saddened by the memory. "I am lucky to have been able to return to Earth at all." The Avengers all looked at the man sympathetically.

"Where's Jane?" Eliot asked.

"She's at the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters here in Portland." Fury replied.

"You have a headquarters here?" Eliot was shocked.

"She's setting one up here for a research group." Fury explained with a shrug.

"Okay…well, the next stage of the con comes tomorrow." Eliot told the Avengers in his Southern drawl. "Sophie as Sola will re-introduce Nate as Norris and they will make sure that Loki draws in every aspect of Mr. Norris' company. We'll pull the rug out from under him the following morning."

"What rug do you speak of?" Thor asked, confused.

Parker perked up, "He means that we will show him it was all a trick!" She was glad that she wasn't the one with the difficulty understanding the figure of speech for once.

"Ah! But if you tell him, then he will know and become enraged!"

"Yes, which is exactly what we want." Eliot explained menacingly.

"You see, Thor," Nate said, "What we are going to do is we will feed Loki a real company, we'll make him think that a real company is owned by my Mr. Norris character when it is really owned by a Mr. Takinawa…Mr. Takinawa is a Japanese business man with some rather…unsavory ways of doing business, we've been itching to take him down, so we may as well get both he and your brother at the same time. When Mr. Takinawa realizes that his company has been stolen, and therefore the proof of all of his illegal activities and contacts, he will be very…upset. He will send men after Loki who will, of course be ready to retaliate…That is where you all will come in. You guys can take him back to S.H.I.E.L.D. or Asgard or wherever, and the cops will just think that he has fled." Nate shrugged, "Of course they will be happy to haul in Mr. Takinawa's men and take him down for good; so it's a win for all sides, I think."

"What of this woman whose son has been corrupted by my brother?"

"Oh, well, we'll be sure to siphon off some of the liquid assets from his company to repay the people he has ripped off."

"I'll find the young Mr. Greggs and do my best to persuade him to our side, Thor," Xavier added. "We'll make all of this right, I promise." Thor nodded, sitting on one of the tall stools, across from Nate who twitched nervously at the demi-god's blatant staring. Maggie easily slid onto the stool beside the large blonde and enjoyed her ex-husband's unease.

Natasha was sitting in the booth across from Sophie and Parker, examining the ring Eliot had given to Katherine. "It was our mother's…she would be very happy that you are wearing it."

"You don't mind, Natasha?" Eliot questioned. "I mean, that ring probably should have been passed down to you."

"No, brother, it's yours to give. I don't know that I would ever need it; but even if I were to wear a ring, I'd like it to be picked out by my guy." She glanced surreptitiously at Clint.

Eliot growled softly. "I was told you had something to say to me after you finished your assignment."

"Well, the assignment's not really over yet…" Natasha glanced to Katherine for help. Katherine shook her head with a wide grin. Sophie patted the Russian girl's hand and Parker bounced up and down in her seat. "Well…okay; we…Clint and I have been dating…for a while, now…I wasn't sure how you'd take the news." Natasha looked up through her eye lashes apologetically.

Eliot sighed and ran his hand through Natasha's hair. "Are you happy?" At her emphatic nod he sighed again. "Well, that overrules any argument from me, then, doesn't it?" He smirked at his baby sister, enjoying his role as heavy-handed big brother. He eyed Clint warningly. "I stand by my earlier warning."

"What warning?" Natasha asked over the laughter filling the room.

_Amy_ opened the door to the private room, "Hey, boss, we're all closed down. See you tomorrow."

"Thanks!" Hardison nodded to the girl.

Once the restaurant doors were locked, Xavier looked to Nate. "Mr. McCoy has informed me that we are needing to find a hotel; what time should we meet here tomorrow?"

"Hey, we have plenty of apartments upstairs, stick around." Hardison said.

"McCoy?" Sophie asked.

"Another…colleague." Xavier smiled.

"Hey, I was wondering who flew you in," Eliot said happily, "I thought it'd been Storm…where's Beast been?"

"He had a few things to do on the X-Jet." Ororo replied.

"Guys, he's hiding." Eliot groaned. "Tell him to get his furry butt down here!"

"I won't give him a choice." Katherine stood with a grin and hopped off the back of the booth to lift herself through the ceiling of the room. Eliot grinned and watched the ceiling; moments later Katherine came sliding gracefully back down with a large blue-furred man gripping her arm.

"Katherine, you know I do not care to be phased through floors, walls, ceilings or any other object!"

"C'mon McCoy, it's not all that bad." Eliot smiled at the newcomer.

"Piotr!" Beast gripped the Russian's hand happily. "I'm glad to see you again, boy!" The blue man's grin faded as he turned to the Leverage crew, knowing the probably reaction that will be on each of their faces.

"Beast, this is my family." Eliot's casual use of the term made the crew smile proudly. "Nate Ford, Alec Hardison, Parker, and Sophie Deveroux."

Beast smiled slowly at the group. "I am glad that our lad here has found a good home with such good people. I hope that you do not mind that he had told us about your team."

"Not at all, Mr. McCoy." Nate came forward with an outstretched hand, his posture and smile relaxed. He shook Beast's hand and turned to include the rest of his crew. "We appreciate your kind words."

Parker bounded forward to inspect McCoy. "Hm…I love that shade of blue!" She said honestly, the rest of the room erupted with laughter. "What?"

"Parker…never mind." Hardison shook his head, smiling at his girlfriend. "So what kind of jet is that? I caught a glimpse of it on my cameras at Ikol before the White Queen got there."

"It's actually a rather special machine. Not an ounce of metal in the entire thing." McCoy stated proudly.

"Wow! Man, I have got to see that!" Hardison's voice held a note of pleading.

"Dude," Eliot admonished. "Maybe in the morning, and that's a _maybe_."

"It's alright…Eliot." McCoy smiled fully, revealing his teeth and fangs. "I enjoy the enthusiasm. I designed and built her, so any questions you have, feel free to ask."

"You're going to regret that, I'm afraid." Sophie laughed. She joined Nate at the blue-man's side. "He is a sucker for anything technical."

"I am sure I can accommodate his queries." Beast replied easily, surprised at the group's easy acceptance of his mutation.

Xavier suggested they all retire for the night, and everyone gladly agreed. Nate led the way to the elevators for Xavier, and let Eliot lead the rest of the group to the stairs. Hardison proudly showed off the renovated area, and the groups split off to claim apartments. Clint steered by Eliot not so subtly to bunk with Steve.


	6. Love and Katherine's Secret

**This Chapter is mainly for character development/explanations and a li'l lovin' for Eliot…Thanks again to those of you that have Reviewed/Favorited/Followed the story! Lots of Love to Y'all! Oh, and sorry for the downer that gets put in here, it has a purpose, though, I promise.**

**Oh, and I only own the Story, so Boo for me!**

Katherine shook her head and grinned as Eliot closed the door to his apartment and drug her to his solid form, kissing her passionately, a groan emanating from his chest.

"Okay, Mr. Double-Standard." Katherine giggled.

"What?" He asked, dazed.

"You just separated your sister from her boyfriend, practically forcibly! You know he's just going to sneak over to see her."

"No." Eliot punctuated his words with nips down Katherine's neck. "He knows…what I…will do…to him. There are no double-standards…We…my love…are engaged." He smiled arrogantly, leaning his head back to the door and watching as Katherine's body reflexively shivered from his attentions.

"Then she'll go to him…none of these apartments are one bedroom, so Steve won't be there to chaperone."

"I'm going to go make sure that Natasha stays with Angel…" Eliot's voice trailed off as Katherine tugged his button-down off his shoulders, pulling it off of him roughly. Her hands traced over his hips and sides as she slowly slid his t-shirt up his torso, planting kisses up his abdomen to his chest and up his neck until the shirt was on the floor with his button-down. "Screw it." He growled and yanked Katherine's shirt over her head.

He picked up the girl that had become very much a woman since he had first met her and carried her to his bed, his mouth only leaving hers to kiss and lick at her ear and neck. Katherine's breathy giggles and sighs threatened to end their night early, but he held onto his control for all he was worth. Eliot tossed Katherine down onto his bed, enjoying the view for a few moments, watching her neck and face redden under his lustful gaze. She squirmed, knowing that her body had filled out since they had first started dating and sleeping together. She was still uncomfortable about her hips, which had spread since the last time she had seen him. Her breasts heaved with her shallow breaths enticingly.

Eliot followed Katherine onto the bed and covered her body with his. He pulled gently at her demi-cup bra and she phased it off. His grin widened with glee when he found she had grown quite a bit in the chest over the last ten months, nearly a full cup-size. Katherine gulped as her lover devoured her new body with his lips and eyes. She gasped when he licked teasingly at her nipple and grabbed his newly-cut hair to hold him where he was. She wrapped her legs around his hips and panted as he drove his large erection into her core.

"Whatever it is that you've been doing, Katya," Eliot drawled, tracing lazy circles down her toned stomach with his tongue, "You should definitely keep it up." He popped open the button on her jeans and pulled the zipper down with his teeth. Katherine held tears in, fighting to control her emotions. She had a secret, one she knew would most likely end their night right then. She also knew that she could not be without the man she loved for another minute, so she held her tongue.

"Uh-uh." Eliot admonished his fiancé as she tried to phase out of her clothing. Playfully swatting her hip. "No more powers tonight."

Katherine stilled herself, and grasped for control. She enjoyed the slow pace Eliot had set for them, he was kissing his way down her legs as he stripped her jeans off, his breath tickling each spot before his mouth and tongue would touch it. He had never wanted to not use their powers before in bed, and the thought excited Katherine. She gasped as her jeans were flung to the floor and Eliot ripped her bikini panties from her body. Suddenly he was looming over her naked form, his chest heaving and his arms shaking as he tried to control himself. It was the most erotic thing Katherine had ever seen, watching Eliot battle back his strength, which she knew he could crush her with if he weren't careful. His jeans were bulging in the front and she was anxious to set him free, so Katherine reached out and popped the button open, watching Eliot's face.

He growled as the pressure eased and waited until Katherine had his jeans shoved down past his hips before he stilled her hands with one of his. He kicked the pants to the floor and resumed making out with Katherine.

"_Ya lyublyu tyebya, Katya_." Eliot growled, his Russian coming out in a rough gasp.

"_Zahy-MEES' sah-MNOHY lyoo-BOH-vyoo, __moy __syerd-tse_." Katherine pleaded with him; bringing his lips down to hers.

Her words sent Eliot over the edge; he struggled to remove his boxers without breaking their kiss, finally freeing himself from the obtrusive fabric. Eliot couldn't think of anything but his need for his Kitty, the only woman who had ever held his heart. He pushed himself roughly into Katherine's tight opening, pausing for the briefest of moments before pulling back and thrusting forward again and again in a steady rhythm.

Katherine's gasps and moans drove him crazy, and her nails clawing at his back made him more careless than ever. Suddenly Eliot rolled onto his back and pulled Katherine on top of him, moving her hips with his hands, he didn't notice the bruises forming beneath his fingers in his lust-fogged mind.

Katherine felt herself getting close to the brink and leaned down to kiss her lover. He understood her silent declaration and rolled them back over just in time for Katherine to come apart beneath him. Her quaking and the muscles convulsing around Eliot's thrusting member drove him over the edge and he filled her, roaring his release in her mouth.

Eliot collapsed half on top of Katherine, who wound her arms around his neck to hold him there, kissing his temples and murmuring her love for him in Russian.

Eliot lifted himself up a few minutes later with effort, and finally noticed the tears on Katherine's face. "Katya?!" His voice hitched with concern. He searched her face and body, looking for a reason for the tears, and finally saw her bruised hips. "God, I'm sorry!" He whispered with self-loathing.

"Those aren't what hurt, Piotr." Katherine replied calmly, tears still falling from her eyes. "I…I should have said something before we…" She turned her eyes from his, shamefully.

"What is it, Katya?" Eliot moved so he was lying next to her, but angled so that his torso trapped her beneath him. "What is wrong?"

"I…I am a…horrible person." She whispered, her eyes closed tightly.

"Katya, look at me." Eliot commanded quietly, pleadingly. As her cobalt eyes opened, filled with guilt, Eliot swallowed convulsively. "What have you done…have…are you…" He could hardly ask the question, bile rising in his throat. "Do you have someone else?"

"No!" Katherine's suddenly wide eyes conveyed the truth of her denial. "No! I would never…you are the only one there has been for me…" At Eliot's guilty look, she placed her palm against his cheek. "I sent you away, I know there have been other women for you…I know that you tried to erase everything between us at first when you were deployed, but I don't hold any of it against you." Katherine kissed the corner of Eliot's mouth softly.

He nodded, his cerulean eyes still not able to maintain contact with hers for long. "Katya…I am sorry for all the things I have done…you will never know how sorry I am."

"Yes…I do know." Katherine's tone told Eliot that she was deeply ashamed of herself, he had the same tone when he spoke of the things he did while in the Army and before when he had been one of the Acolytes.

"How?"

Katherine met Eliot's eyes and held them as she spoke a truth only one other living soul knew. "Eliot…after you left the last time…when I said 'no' to your proposal…I was in a…a _really_ bad place. I didn't leave my room for three weeks, wouldn't eat for days…I became really, really sick. I started training between the bouts of illness…I took on several one-on-one classes with Logan. I worked the kids so hard the Prof asked me to allow Rogue to take over their training. It went on for about three or four months. And even Rogue stopped talking to me for a while." Katherine's voice cracked and she cleared her throat, not allowing her eyes to slip from Eliot's. She licked her lips as she tried to find the right way to phrase her next statement. "I took off for a while on my own. I don't know what I really planned on doing. I just needed away from the Institute. I hated myself for turning you down, I hated myself for being a mutant…I just hated myself. I was in a small town around Bayville when I ran into…when…I saw Avalanche."

Eliot held himself perfectly still, knowing that whatever it was that Katherine had to say would be held back if he reacted in any way.

"He…he attacked me." Katherine said, her tone turning the words into vivid images for Eliot who swore internally. "He…he…I thought I could handle him, I mean, I can phase and I can fight and I was thoroughly pissed off…but he had…an inhibitor collar and I was still kind of sick, and a little weak from having been sick for so long…Logan found me a few hours later. Apparently he had been following me and checking in on me every day, even though I didn't know it. I was a mess, Eliot. And in a way I figured I deserved it." She took a deep breath. "I was pretty out of it; Logan took me to the institute, he knew he had to get the collar off of me, but the new collars…if they are smashed or try to be pulled apart, they latch together permanently with Adamantium…So he took me to the institute and Beast…Beast treated me; but they couldn't get the bleeding to stop. They went through the reserve of my own blood that we had—from when Beast figured we needed to keep a supply for everyone just in case—and he had to find an adequate match. He was even going to call my parents in…but the computer locked onto a _genetic match_ already in the database. That's when they learned that Logan was my dad…though I didn't find out until later…I was in a coma." Another deep breath, this time Katherine started shaking, "When I woke up, Beast told me what all had happened. How, thanks to Logan-my father-I was alive. His blood temporarily allowed my body to heal like his…but it…the healing…I lost it…I didn't even know." Katherine quietly began to sob.

"Lost what; what didn't you know?" Eliot asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

"Our baby, Eliot…I was stupid and childish and instead of dealing with things like the adult I was supposed to be and noticing the obvious signs, I took off and ended up getting our baby killed!" Katherine sobbed more loudly. Eliot felt his heart stop beating for a few moments. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and felt his stomach churn with hatred. He gripped Katherine's arms and made her look him in the eyes.

"Katherine," He said, his voice quiet and dangerous. "You didn't know…you did nothing wrong! _He_ was the one that did it…" Eliot felt the need to hit something growing. "And I will kill him for that." He vowed. "But you were right…you are…you are a cruel person Katherine…you couldn't even come to me to tell me this when it happened? I had _every_ right to know that you had been carrying _our _child! I had every right to know that that scum…that Alvers killed _my_ child and raped _my_ woman!" Eliot leaped from the bed and paced like a caged animal. His use of Katherine's full name told her he was more than pissed with her.

She gathered her shattered pride and stood to face Eliot. "I know, now, that I should have come to find you six months ago…I should have searched for you back then…but I…I felt-feel-responsible. I shouldn't have taken our child's life before she had a chance to live…I should have told you this before…" Katherine gestured to the bed. "I am sorry…more sorry than you'll ever be able to comprehend."

She gathered her clothes, dropping the ruined pair of underwear in the trash can beside the bed. She glanced quickly at Eliot's tense back before walking to the door.

"She?" Eliot asked quietly just as Katherine had reached the doorway stopping her.

"Yes." Her breath hitched as her chin dropped to her chest, "McCoy told me she was a girl."

Suddenly Eliot was pulling Katherine's back against his chest, shoving her clothes out of her arms as his hands locked her arms to her sides. "I'm sorry, too, Katya." He breathed in her ear. Katherine felt her heart fill with hope at the words. "I should have stayed and talked to you about your reasons for saying 'no'. I'm sorry that you had to go through that loss alone…but now I am having to go through it alone…and I have no idea how to move on."

Katherine shook her head and looked over her shoulder and into the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen. "I'm still trying to find a way to move on…I don't know if it's possible to. But you aren't alone in this…I don't think I ever allowed myself to think about it, let alone feel the loss until I found out I was supposed to see you again."

Eliot cradled Katherine against his chest and began walking them back to the bed. He pulled Katherine down onto his lap. "We have a job to do tomorrow…if it all works out, then it will be over in a matter of days." Eliot's eyes hardened, "Then I am going to go find Alvers." He promised.

"Dad and the Prof couldn't find him…" Katherine said, "How will you?"

"I'm not going to think like a mutant. I know where he is, and I know what he is doing right this minute. I know exactly why Logan and Xavier weren't able to find him—but I will and I will make him pay."

"Eliot…I want to be there. I want—no I _need_—to be there when he's found."

"No, Katya." Eliot held her chin in his hand and stared into the depths of her eyes, allowing her to see into his, and see the malice there, and all the things he had done in his life that he wasn't proud of. "I won't have blood on your hands. You won't be the same afterwards…I won't either, but I already have stained hands and a tainted soul, one more splash of red won't matter all that much."

Katherine's eyes held compassion. She took Eliot's face in her hands and ran her finger over the scar in his eyebrow. "Will you…do you still want…" She couldn't bring herself to ask the question when she knew the answer could very well be a negative.

"If, after I find him…" Eliot cleared his throat. "If you still want me, I'll come back to you." His tone and downturned gaze told Katherine that he wasn't sure she would still want him.

"I'll come find you if you don't come to me." Katherine promised.

"You aren't going to try to stop me?" Eliot asked, turning his face to kiss Katherine's palm.

"I want to be there, so I may follow you, but, no, I won't stop you." Katherine's eyes were hard, the hatred in them making Eliot flinch internally. He wished she had never been forced to feel such anger that her eyes could hold that emotion.

"You won't be there. But I will come back to you." He lay his fiancé back on the bed and kissed the ring he had put on her finger earlier that night. "I have a promise to fulfill." He smirked.

"Oh, please!" Katherine laughed lightly, "We won't have much time to plan our wedding if you really are going to try to beat Rogue and Remmy down the aisle."

"You haven't had a chance to really meet Sophie…it'll be gorgeous, and everything you could ever want it to be." Eliot promised with a gentle kiss.

They made love slowly, allowing their bodies to convey their feelings for one another, before they each fell into a deep and restful sleep in each other's arms.


	7. Disscussions and Breakfast

**Thanks again to all the readers, it's good to know others are enjoying this story as much as I am!**

**I only own the Storyline, so Boo for me!**

The sun was barely making an appearance over the horizon and Eliot was awake. Lying on his back, Katherine draped half over his body, her head on his chest and her leg thrown casually over his. He was running his fingers through her hair, his other hand behind his own head. He lay there thinking of the child that should be a month old at that moment. He really wanted to just forget about Loki and go to Alvers, but he knew that he would never do that; not to his old teammates, or his new family. He had actually felt the tears falling from beneath his eyelids once he had been certain that Katherine was still asleep in his embrace that morning. Eliot thought long and hard about what he wanted for the future. He knew he wouldn't have to hide anything from any one of the people that were in the building ever again, and he knew that once this job with Loki was over that his family would insist on moving to Long Island. He could see Sophie's face when he had mentioned the train-ride-away-from-Manhattan distance; she would adore the suburban life while still being so close to the big city. Parker had probably been envisioning spelunking off of the Statue of Liberty, the spark in her eye only came when she thought of pulling some crazy stunt. Hardison would have a field day with the security system around the Institute alone, not to mention all the things he could learn from and teach McCoy about tech-things. And Nate, well, New York was practically the Capital of corruption, he'd do just fine.

Eliot new that he was avoiding thinking of the one thing he needed to; he needed to make a decision about one thing before Katherine woke up, and he was uncomfortable with what his decision would mean for the two of them. He forcibly returned his thoughts toward children. He loved kids, he hated to see one hurt, and he knew his line of business would come with the possibility of pain to any child of his. He sighed, knowing his heart was already made up, and his mind would just have to accept it.

Katherine stretched her arm out over Eliot's chest, arching her back and kicking her leg out straight. She sighed contentedly and cuddled back into Eliot's chest. He laughed silently at her little shimmy as she tried to readjust herself without fully waking.

"Stop moving." She mumbled, a smile quirking her lips.

"We should probably talk." Eliot said, keeping his raspy voice light.

"Uh-uh," Katherine turned her face so that her nose was buried in Eliot's ribs. "Anytime you say those words you want to discuss something serious…I am not in the mood for serious. I'm still floating from last night, here."

Eliot laughed again, purposely moving his chest enough to jostle Katherine. "Yeah, well we don't have a whole lot of time before our job begins. So I repeat: We should probably talk."

Katherine sighed and lifted her head, a frown creasing between her eyebrows. "You owe me a damned good breakfast."

"Yes, ma'am." Eliot grinned at Katherine's state of undress as she lifted her chest off of his.

Katherine shook her head tried to hide her smile and blush behind the curtain of her hair. Eliot pushed the offending strands back behind her ear, then caressed her cheek.

"I-uh…" Eliot stammered a bit. "I need to tell you something. I've been up for a while thinking about…things." His tone had Katherine extracting her face from his hand and moved to sit against the headboard, pulling the sheet to cover her from the neck down.

"What things?" She asked cautiously.

"Children." His heart ached when he saw the pain etched in Katherine's eyes. "My line of work…it's not really conducive to child-rearing…it's really dangerous, and if any one of my enemies found out I have children or a wife…they would be very happy…and very cruel." He lowered his eyes, his head filled with awful images; he shook them away and looked back at Katherine, who sat stiffly. "I am selfish enough to use the fact that you have powers to convince myself that our marriage is safe…but kids, kids don't get powers until they are teenagers, they are vulnerable to so much…" He sighed and looked his fiancé in the eyes. "But I _want_ children, dammit! And not just any kids, I want to have children with _you_!" Eliot forced himself to sit back when he realized he had been slowly invading Katherine's space. "I need to know if you are okay with having children after…" He trailed off, not wanting to say the words that tore his insides to shreds and threatened to stop his heart.

Katherine was still sitting stiffly, her hands holding the sheet to her throat in a death-grip. "I-I," She stammered and shook her head. "I can't…I mean, I don't know…I…" Her body shook with the force of her tears. "I…I don't want to replace her." She cried.

Eliot gathered the small woman to his chest and shoved the sheet out of the way, wanting Katherine to have as much contact with his body as possible. "Darlin' we couldn't…_ever_…replace her. But we shouldn't deny ourselves children because of…She would understand." Eliot's voice cracked with tears, speaking the words that he had been torturing himself with for the past hour.

Katherine sniffed, and pulled slightly away from Eliot so that she could look him in the eyes. "Are you sure? Can you be sure?"

"Yes." He blinked and more tears fell from his eyes. Katherine slowly wiped each one away and placed her hand over his heart, the solid thrum able to be felt as she considered things, her eyes on her hand. "I love you too much to deny you most anything." She looked back up to Eliot, "And I want more children…Eliot, I _really_ do…but…I think I'll be afraid to try."

"Then we won't try." Eliot shrugged. "We will just…wait and if it happens, then it does…would you be okay with that?"

Katherine thought about it and finally nodded. "I think I could handle that…but I don't know…I wish I had someone to talk to…I mean, someone who's been here…in this position."

Eliot took a deep breath and said, uneasily, "We do have one person we can go to."

Katherine looked to Eliot in confusion. He shook his head slightly and helped her to move off of his lap. She followed his lead and got dressed, glad for the bag of clothes Ororo had thought to bring her from the mansion.

Once the pair were dressed, Eliot dialed his phone and spoke softly. "Can you come over, now? I'll have breakfast ready by the time you get here…no, it's a…personal matter." Eliot swallowed hard, "Katherine and I need to talk to someone who's…been where we are." He listened for a moment then nodded, relief plain on his face. "Thanks." Eliot hung up and made a second identical call. He looked more pained after the second call as he closed his phone and glanced quickly at Katherine, "I'm going to start the food."

Ten minutes later Katherine was opening Eliot's apartment door, her eyes widening slightly at the person on the other side. "Eliot's just about finished with breakfast; he wanted to talk in the living room." She gestured weakly to the couch behind herself.

Nate nodded and moved into the apartment, confusion in his eyes. Eliot joined Katherine and Nate, handing out plates of bacon, eggs, and biscuits. He sat down heavily on his black leather couch, placing his plate on the coffee table in front of him. Nate followed suit, sitting in the matching recliner. Katherine had already abandoned her plate on an end table.

"I take it you didn't call me here to show off your cooking skills." Nate prodded quietly, his eyes bouncing between the newly-engaged couple.

"There's someone else we're waiting on." Eliot said equally quiet, his voice more hoarse than Nate could ever remember hearing it. The knock on the door made Eliot flinch before he rose to greet their other guest, he gestured Maggie into the living room and went to get her plate from the kitchen. When he returned he placed her plat beside Nate's as she was perched on the arm of his chair.

"Now I get it." Maggie looked down, her eyes filling with tears. Nate looked shocked and turned on the couple on the couch.

"What is going on here?" He said, finally fully awake.

"Nate," Eliot began sadly, "This isn't easy for me, or for Katherine, so—please—listen to us and…if you can find any advice in your heart," His voice cracked slightly, "I am begging you to offer it."

Maggie laid her hand on Nate's shoulder and nodded to him. Her eyes pleading for understanding. He nodded to her and turned back to Eliot folding his hands together and letting them fall between his knees as he sat forward in the chair.

"When I…well, Katherine turned my proposal down ten months ago…I came back here and you know how I've been…but what I didn't know, well, was how my leaving affected Katya." Eliot looked downward momentarily before raising to meet Nate's perpetually calm gaze pleadingly. "She didn't know my reasons for not explaining everything to you guys, and so she thought it was out of shame…she said she became really…withdrawn."

"I hid for weeks in my room, rarely eating; I took on a huge amount of training and over-worked the kids I was supposed to be teaching…So I finally took off from the Institute." Katherine's voice gave out with a soft sob.

Eliot sighed. "You seem to know a lot about the X-Men, so you probably know about Magneto and the Brotherhood…" Eliot waited for Nate's nod before continuing. "Well, when Katya was a teenager, she dated a guy that was a part of their group—tried to convenes him to become an X-Man. It didn't work." Eliot shook his head. "It was Lance Alvers, also known as Avalanche." He noted Nate's nod and continued. "Katya had a run-in with him after leaving the mansion…he…he a-attacked her." Eliot felt tears fall from his eyes and Nate launched himself from the chair. Nate gripped Eliot's shoulder comfortingly and murmured words of apology to Katherine. Eliot composed himself and gratefully squeezed the older man's forearm. He motioned for Nate to resume his seat and continued. "Well, luckily Logan had been following Katya to keep her out of trouble and he found her within a few hours…but she had already lost a lot of blood, and the supply at the Institute ran out quickly, because they couldn't stop the bleeding. McCoy had her…blood…being run by the computer for some analysis, and it showed that Logan's blood would match hers for the transfusion because it was a paternal match…his ability to heal himself temporarily transferred to Katya, and so she healed…but—" Eliot could hardly make the words come out, his tongue felt heavy and he had to work to move his lips. "It worked too well…her body…she…Katya had been pregnant with my baby…she lost it." Eliot forced himself not to break down and noticed Nate's heartbroken face. "I don't know how to move on…I need your help, Nate." He pleaded.

"My God, Eliot…" Nate's mind replayed all of his experiences with Sam, the good and the bad, his birth to his death. He knew what all Eliot had missed, and how hard this would hit the soft-hearted hitter, surprised he had admitted to needing help. "What can _I_ do?" Nate was at a loss.

Eliot had watched the emotions and memories as they crossed his boss' face; he had known that the older man would be reminded of his own son, and knew it had been cruel to remind him of it, but Eliot was desperate. He gripped Katherine's hand as she stared between her stomach and the pair across from them.

Maggie cleared her throat and blinked the tears back. "Our son…Sam…he died from cancer when he was eight." She told Katherine, who physically flinched at the words.

"I am so sorry." Katherine whispered, her eyes wide, she looked to Eliot and realized why he had called these two for advice.

"We…" Eliot cleared his throat, "I don't really know how to ask this."

"There is a process to moving on, Eliot." Nate replied calmly. "I don't know how or when it happened for me, but I can now say that I have moved on. But our situations are so different…you…I don't have a magical insight or anything into this."

Maggie sat up straighter, staring at the two young lovers. "You want to know if it is okay to have more children." She stated compassionately.

Eliot looked shameful; Katherine merely nodded, staring at her hands.

"Eliot…" Nate stared at his friend.

"I haven't ever really considered kids, Nate." The words tumbled out, uninhibited. "I never really thought about that very much…But, now, I have…and I _want_ them. I want children…with Katya." His voice was pleading for understanding.

"Eliot," Nate repeated. "You can never replace a child…but you can have more without dishonoring the first! Do what you feel would make this awful event final…grieve, let yourself heal…and at some point you will be able to say that it happened and know that despite anything that could have prevented it, nothing did know that it is okay."

Maggie let her tears fall, holding onto Nate's shoulder and staring at him in amazement at the eloquence. "Nate is right, you two need to do something to preserve the memory of the baby for you, and then allow life to go on…I'm sorry that you had to experience this loss…especially in this way…but I know that both of you are strong enough to get through it—and you have each other to lean on if one day gets a little too tough."

"Thanks, you two." Katherine smiled a little, "I know that it can't be easy to talk about this."

"I think that talking about it," Nate sighed, "actually helped me get past the pain."

"Nate," Eliot addressed the older man quietly, his tone serious. "After this job…I'll be gone for a while. I'll be back after a couple of weeks, but I just want to…warn you."

Nate nodded, knowing that Eliot was going to go find Lance and kill him. He approved of the plan a little too much for his own liking, but did not try to convince Eliot to do anything else. The group was silent for a few minutes, then began to eat, Eliot getting up to start more food, knowing that the smell would be bringing Parker and the Avengers to his door.

The others did not disappoint, just as Eliot had finished plating the food, his door was opened, Parker still on a knee with her lock-picks in hand, grinning like mad. Eliot shook his head and pointed everyone to the kitchen. Sophie and Alec dragged in behind the others, still half asleep. They nodded their thanks to their hitter for the food and quietly began to eat.

Thor was immensely happy with the meal, and made his delight known loudly. Natasha shook her head with a smile as the Leverage crew winced and the other Avengers and X-Men rolled their eyes.

Eliot made eye contact with Logan and Remmy and motioned with his head for the other two men to meet him in the hall. Nate noticed this and positioned himself in between Katherine and the threesome as they quietly slipped away.

In the hall, Eliot turned on the other two. "You couldn't have come to me and told me what was going on with Katya?!" His whisper was gravelly and pained. "She was holed up for _months_ and no one thought to come get me?"

"Look, Bub, she didn't want to see _anyone_…and as I recall, you were the one who took off in the middle of the night."

"Ma Cher would not let me come to you." The Cajun said, frowning slightly. "She can be very persuasive. An' I probably woul' have blown ya up anyway." He shrugged.

Logan's arms were folded across his chest. "Why does this even matter now? Aren't you two engaged and happy?"

Eliot glanced to the apartment door and moved further down the hall. "Why is Alvers still alive?"

Logan's growl rumbled his chest. "We can't get to him…the Acolytes have kept us busy, and then this came up." He nodded toward Eliot's apartment.

"I will be happy to blow his head off if I get the chance."

Eliot shook his head. "No. He's _MINE_." He said venomously, his body shaking with rage. He looked to Logan questioningly. "With your…heightened senses, surely you know what really happened."

Logan's claws protruded and retracted with each clench of his fists. "I was hopin' I was wrong…and she never actually _told_ me."

"No, she and McCoy are the only ones who have known. Until now. I want his heart in my hands so that I can rip it to shreds." Eliot seethed.

Logan nodded his agreement. Remmy, confused by the dialogue, simply leaned back against the wall, one foot resting on the wood. He would have gladly taken out the little prick long before he had been an X-Man, but that wasn't his job at the time. Now it seemed that he would not be allowed to do the deed itself, but at least he would be involved in it, which suited him just fine. Remmy was focusing his anger on the deck of cards he constantly played with, blowing them up one at a time, trying to rid himself of some of his anger. He could only guess at what the other two mutants were discussing, but any scenario he could come up with only built more anger within his chest. He wanted to burn it out either in the sheets with Rogue or by blowing up Loki and his little entourage; he liked that image, so allowed it to replay in his mind a few times as he grinned.

"We need to get back in there." Logan nodded to the closed door. "And after this mission…we are going to talk." He told Eliot. "You have some answers to give me."

Eliot nodded, knowing he would never really be afraid of the larger mutant again, not after knowing the fear and pain of his and Katherine's loss. He knew Logan would probably beat the crap out of him for sleeping with Katherine, but he wasn't fazed by the idea, he knew in a way that he had it coming. He should have waited, but Katherine was as persuasive as Rogue when she wanted something.

They reentered the apartment with little notice from the others who were still gathered around the table, Eliot's couch having been turned and moved to face the dining area and all of his chairs moved into the room as well. He shrugged and went to join his fiancé who was speaking to a positively _glowing_ Sophie. She turned and hugged Eliot tightly with a little squeal. He returned the embrace hesitantly, his eyebrows drawn together in confusion as he looked over the English-woman's shoulder at Katherine who grinned sheepishly.

"You really want me to help you put your wedding together?" Sophie asked him. Eliot grinned with realization.

"Who else could plan a wedding for this April…it's only eight months away, and you pulled off the last one so beautifully in two days…but this time you will have to find another caterer." He joked.

Sophie twirled around to share her joyous news with Nate who grinned at Eliot and rolled his eyes.

Fury finally sat back and said seriously, "Okay, so what time are you to meet with Loki?"

"Eleven." Sophie shrugged, "Nate will meet us a half an hour later. By two o'clock the Mark will be hooked and the trap will be set. It will only be a matter of keeping him from using any of his other…friends to check into our story."

"I will handle Loki's mind; keep him preoccupied." The professor smiled slightly.

"The portal he uses to connect with the other worlds will be diverted by my friends and I." Thor bellowed.

"The few friends he has here that are connected to this," Logan broke in, "Will be…detained." He glanced around the room, selecting his team; Steve, Rogue, Remmy, Clint, Natasha, even Parker was included in his squad.

Eliot spoke up. "Bruce, Tony, Katya, and I will cover Nate and Sophie.

"I will make sure the weather cooperates, and that there will be too much cloud-cover for him to be able to even use his computer." Ororo grinned.

"McCoy," Nate addressed, "I would like for you and Hardison to monitor what you can from the van, we'll need a technological advantage for this, and we need for it to look like I own Mr. Takinawa's company." He smirked at the identical evil glints in both Hardison and Beast's eyes. "Fury, keep us updated on anything going on with the White Queen…and…Angel?" He questioned the tall blonde man that had brought Maggie to them the previous night. He nodded, and Nate continued. "Can you and Maggie possibly cause a few minor…disruptions in his company?" The two blondes grinned maliciously. "Then, let Phase Two begin…Let's go steal a Yakuza company!" Nate smirked at Hardison and Beast as everyone rose from their seats to get ready for the day.


	8. The Atlantis and Aftermath

**I did not realize that this would be the last chapter until I finished writing it…but there will definitely be a sequel! I'm not sure if the weddings will be separate stories or not, but I know there is at least one more story to follow this one. I hope I've at least entertained some people with this story!**

**Oh, and I only own the story, not the characters, so Boo for me!**

Eleven o'clock; Sophie held her head high and felt the telepath she admired in her head, laying the layer of Sola the Charlatan's memories atop her own. He hadn't wanted to risk Loki having found a new mind-reader and blowing their cover in the first few moments. She smiled slowly as Loki approached her with outstretched arms. Sophie leaned into the hug graciously, pulling back when the embrace lingered just beyond what would be considered friendly. She wanted the idea planted in Loki's mind that she was interested in him. If his startled gaze was to be believed, she had played her part well.

Sophie turned her chest slightly toward the staircase on the other side of the room, which Loki had avoided on the previous night, as she spoke to Loki. "I was hoping that today would go smoothly. My…little toy will be joining us shortly and I was hoping for a bit of a tour first, so I can entice him properly."

Loki gallantly swept his arm out to indicate the stairs she had aimed her body toward. As they climbed the steps, Loki placed his hand on the small of Sophie's back, she embraced the thoughts and memories of Sola and reacted as the goddess might have and laughed flirtatiously as she danced slightly out of his reach. Enjoying the game, Loki smirked and leapt ahead of Sola on the stairs, stopping her advances.

Nate about had a coronary as he watched the little tet 'a' tet. He had sent Sophie undercover with a lot of men before, very charming and handsome men, but for some reason this one made his blood boil. The images that Hardison had been able to get via the Ikol's own security cameras were turning the Mastermind's stomach. When Fury shoved a glass of Alka-Seltzer into his hand with a wry grin, Nate shot back the ant-acid and stalked out of the van, hardly noticing the blue mutant's sympathetic smile.

"Updates." He ordered quietly over the coms.

"Really?" Parker's voice floated to him from miles away. "Geez, Nate, give us some time to actually accomplish something!"

"Give the man a break, Parker." Hardison replied, his voice sounding slightly strangled. "He's having to watch that smarmy bastard hit on Sophie and she's having to play along with it."

"Oh…Sorry." Parker mumbled. "I'm in the air-shaft, and Logan should be coming in any minute. I've given him the location of all the players in the building…he's already taken out about three of Loki's associates. It's kind of creepy how many of these guys there are here…oh, and the Cajun? He's sadistic." She stated as an after-thought.

"I resent that…" Came the Cajun's slow drawl.

"How do you put up with this, Spencer?" Logan growled.

"Practice…and a _lot_ of punching bags. I think I went through a dozen of them within the first six months." Eliot said dryly.

"Alright, Nate," Hardison called from the back of his van. "Sorry, but we need you to keep up with all of this in here." He indicated the monitor that showed Sophie slowly trailing her hand across a solid gold bar.

"So, Mr. Loki…" Sophie stroked the gold bar affectionately. "I see your _passions_ and _desires_ here for the company." She stated seductively. "Just what is it all _worth_ in the end? I would hate to disappoint you by not _going for it all_." Sophie moved her hand to her lips, lightly stroking them as if in thought. Loki's eyes were glued to her slight pout. "Your _heart's desires_ are a new mission for me." She grinned wickedly. "I don't see how you have _controlled_ yourself for so many months, slowly going for your goal…instead of just _taking_ what you want." Her teeth grazed over her bottom lip slowly as she moved her hand down her body to rest in her lap. "_I_ could never _hold myself back_. I am all about the…_pounce_." Sophie allowed her hand to slide across her lap and lay softly upon her upper thy, her fingertips toying with the hem of her too-short skirt.

"Aaaand…now my pants are too tight…" Tony quipped, watching the monitor Hardison had given to him and the rest of Eliot's team.

"What in the hell is she doing?" Fury asked, confused.

Nate grinned a bit at the sound of Eliot's fist connecting with Tony's body. "She is using neuro-linguistic-suggestions to make Loki associate his feelings for money and power with her. He'll be eating out of her palm in a few moments."

"I think I may be able to accommodate your interests." Loki spoke as if in a trance. "I will be sure to repay you for this meeting today, very soon." He promised.

"Oh, I do hope so." Sophie smiled flirtatiously.

"That's my cue." Nate huffed and jumped from the back of the van.

"We're up." Eliot spoke in low tones to his team, giving Katherine a side-hug as they crept along the side of the building. They would meet Nate on the third floor and then trail him inconspicuously up to whatever room Loki planned to meet him in. The sky above was slowly turning an ugly shade of yellowish-gray. The clouds were churning and satellite uplinks were being completely shut-down due to the wall of clouds. Nate grinned when he heard the angry out-bursts from people within the building's offices who were unable to continue their conference calls and video chats.

Nate had been directed to the fifteenth floor, and hardly moved his eyes when he passed by his bodyguards on the third floor. From there he took an elevator to the fifteenth floor, cursing internally when the doors opened and he realized that the entire floor was one office, with no hallways or access doors to the stairwell. He fought to keep his breathing even when he noticed Sophie's stiff posture as she sat on the window sill behind Loki.

"Ah, Mr. Ikol," The Bostonian accent did not waver from his voice. "A pleasure to see you again." Nate smiled widely and held out his hand affably.

"Mister…Norris, was it?" Lokie looked at the other man's hand with a sarcastic grin. "I've looked into you, Mr. Norris. I know when someone is trying to trick me. You and your little girlfriend here are not as good at the game as you think."

Nate did his best to ignore the cussing and banging noises in his ear, and replied in a foolish tone. "I don't have a girlfriend, Mr. Ikol. I was told by the miss here behind you that I would be meeting with a…holier person than you."

"Things do not often go as planned with such things." Loki shook his head in mock-sadness. "And this little game you are playing is getting old." Loki raised his arm and his staff appeared, shooting a blue electrical current out of the top at Nate's chest.

"Plan G it is, then." Nate coughed, his breath was roughly expelled from his body as he crashed into a wall that he realized must have been made from metal-coated concrete.

Suddenly the building shook and the wall came crumbling down. The dust filling the room was eradicated as the windows shattered, Sophie falling backwards out of the building with a scream. Nate's body was buried beneath the rubble of the former wall as Eliot in his fully-metallic body rushed Loki. Tony stepped over what was left of the wall and lifted his forearms up. Suddenly a large crimson metal object flew up behind him and attached to his body, covering his entire form, his trade-mark smirk was the last thing to be covered as the metal enclosed his face. He stood proudly in a red and yellow titanium-alloy suit. Bruce roared and let his emotions go, suddenly shaking violently and ripping apart as he turned into a large green monster.

Thor flew through the shattered window, his hammer outstretched and ready. He was red with rage and an angry growl emanated from his chest as his feet connected to the floor and he swung his hammer at his brother. He tossed Loki into the Hulk's arms, where he was squeezed until his bones could be heard being crushed.

Loki's shrieks of pain caused an evil smile on Eliot's face. He punched the demi-god's face, breaking every bone from his cheeks to his nose to his jaw. The blood spewing from Loki's mouth turned black as the demi-god roared and was suddenly free from the Hulk's grasp. He was reaching for the staff that was floating to him until a streak of red crossed his path and the staff was gone.

"I don't think so, Loco." Stark quipped as he flew out of the building in his Iron Man suit and down to the van where he could hear Hardison flipping out. "Fury, do something with this thing." Tony ordered flippantly as he swooped back up into the air, having tossed the offending staff into the back of Lucile. Beast was climbing up the side of the Ikol Corporation building, his legs propelling him up two or more flights at a time as he rushed to aid his friends.

Angel deposited Sophie on the ground outside of the van's open back doors and took to the sky again, as well. Sophie's face was a comical mixture of terror, admiration and disbelief. Suddenly, Nate was shoved out of the lobby wall of the building and he ran to join his crew.

"Father!" Thor was bellowing a few moments later, "Now!" Suddenly, Storm pulled her cloud cover to leave a large circle clear and a strange golden and pink beam crashed through and into the structure. There was a defining silence as the beam disappeared and the Avengers and X-Men slowly ambled from the building and various parts of the grounds around it over to Lucile.

"I guess a 'Plan G' really _was_ necessary." Tony quipped, the gold front of his Iron Man helmet pulled back to reveal his face.

"Oh my freakin'…Good lord…Whoa…" Hardison gaped at the billionaire and the large green monster that had been a slightly-skinny scientist.

"Colossus?" Xavier questioned Eliot as he rolled over to his former pupil. "Are you alright?"

Eliot shrank down to his normal size and shook his head a bit, his eyes closing for a moment tightly. "Yeah, a bit of a headache, I'll be good…I want it noted that I _really_ _HATE_ that god." The others laughed quietly in agreement.

"So…" Hardison drew out the word questioningly, "He's gone?"

"Yes." Thor replied evenly, "My father will take care of him now."

Parker leaned into Hardison's chest, listening to the thrum of his heart. "That was scary." She said so quietly that few heard her. The Leverage crew had heard her statement, though, and went into over-protective mode with their most care-free member. Eliot, their protector, glared at the team she had been assigned to. She shook her head and let them know she would talk about it later.

Steve, dressed in his red-white-and-blue's as Tony had taken to calling the uniform, put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "We didn't want for you to see that…but…"

"I know." Parker's voice was strong, her eyes telling him that she was okay with what had happened. Steve nodded slightly and stepped back.

"Sorry, darlin'." Logan shrugged a bit, his skin-tight black uniform accentuating the motion. He turned to face the fury of his soon-to-be son-in-law. "Colossus…this job ain't over yet."

"Wait," Sophie spoke up, "I thought Loki was gone…"

"His…partner, the one that alerted him to our involvement…he isn't gone." Natasha replied.

"His partner?" Nate asked.

Dread rose from the pit of Eliot's stomach as Logan and his squad from that day each turned to him in guilt. "Magneto."

"We need to hide your team." Xavier said gently. "They are welcome at the Institute until this is resolved. Or I can fly them to my place in England.

"No!" Parker shouted, jumping up to cling to her favorite hitter. "He's _ours_, you got it? _OURS_! I don't care if you knew him first! He's _OURS_! You can't have him back! Not for this! Not after…that!"

"Parker?" Eliot's southern drawl was comforting. His eyes threw questions at the rest of Logan's squad.

"Magneto may have…informed her of some things." Clint replied, softly.

"And he…proved his powers…maliciously." Natasha added, looking to the ground.

"Ah barely got ta him in time." Rogue said sadly. "But I dropped him."

Parker was looking at Remmy sadly, with regret and fear in her eyes. The Cajun merely turned his eyes to his fiancé. The uniform he wore covered the outsides of his face and forehead, but Eliot zeroed in on the bruises that tinted the outline of the other man's face and worried just what Magneto had done to his friend.

"Ma cher, she had ta let go of Magneto…Pyro and the Quicksilver, they have learned to work together." Remmy said, still avoiding his old friend's eyes. "And we had ta get back ere…Sabretooth was here."

Parker's worried eyes became mutinous at the mention of the other blonde mutant as she swung her infuriated gaze at Logan. "_You_ _LEFT THEM_!" She shrieked accusation plain in her tone.

"They know how to handle themselves." Logan replied curtly.

"You didn't know if he was alive!" She nodded to Remmy.

"Gambit ain't gonna die that easy…his skull's a lot harder than that…and, in case ya hadn't noticed, blondie, my little _enhancement_ is utterly useless against Magneto!" The older mutant spat with venom. He hated to be reminded that it was safer for him to run away than stay with his team to fight Magneto.

"Parker." Eliot had to repeat the young girl's name twice more before she would look at him. "Magneto controls any and all metals, even mine…it's safer for the entire team if Logan and I stay away from those fights. He's used Logan's claws against the X-Men before…he'll do it again." Sophie made sympathetic noises as she listened intently to the conversation.

"So just how do we go about fighting this guy?" Tony asked. "I mean, we'll be down at least us three."

"You fight Magneto by not confronting him." Nate supplied with a shrug. "If you can't go at him without being crushed, you take out his underlings…it's Moreau…but with mutations, we did it once, we can do it again."

"Nate…" Maggie, Xavier, Angel, and all of the Avengers admonished the man for the mere suggestion of their using the Leverage crew against Magneto.

"You've got a point there." Eliot surprised everyone by agreeing with his boss. "It's not like he won't go back underground for a while after all of this. Leverage Inc can take out some of his little holdings first, then we can step in and take care of the ones with powers."

"Eliot!" Katherine looked at her fiancé in shock. "You can't be serious."

"They'll do it on their own, or with our help…I'd rather have their backs than let them loose and have them get caught without backup." Eliot explained, untangling Parker from his body. He stared at the young blonde empathetically. "You aren't loosing me to them, Parker. You're just as much my sister as Natasha is. Families stick together, so let's do what we do and nail this son of a bitch once and for all."

Parker nodded slowly, and then returned to Hardison. "Only if you _promise_ that we're still a team."

"We're always gonna be a team." Eliot grinned. "Now we just have a larger…extended family to call on." The Avengers and X-Men grinned widely.

"I suggest we move on," Ororo said then, "I can't just keep this cover here, it must move on or someone will be suspicious."

The others nodded and agreed to meet back at the Brew Pub, Eliot and Katherine opting to head back in Lucile with the Leverage crew. Professor X promised to ensure the true details of the destruction of the Ikol building would never be known.

At the restaurant, the Leverage crew, Avengers, and X-Men grinned widely as they watched the live telecast of Mr. Takinawa being escorted out of his office in handcuffs for having the Ikol building demolished after a bad business deal. His Yakuza connections were also being investigated and confirmed quickly. He would never be leaving the Federal penal system. The group toasted their win and agreed that New York was going to be in for a big adventure in the next few weeks as the Leverage Crew opened up their offices there.


End file.
